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PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 



By 

CHARLES HENRY FOWLER /5^ 

Late Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church «— '^-^^T^ 



Prepared for publication 
By his son 

Carl Hitchcock Fowler 



With an Introduction 

By 

John Wesley Hill 

Pastor Metropolitan Temple, New York 



NEW YORK: EATON & MAINS 
CINCINNATI: JENNINGS & GRAHAM 






Copyright, 1910, by 
EATON & MAINS 



Q)ry!\-i^^i^O'^ 



»5" 



tlTo 
^pra J^itcfjcocfe ifoioler 

THE PARTNER OF HIS LIFE FOR NEARLY FORTY YEARS, 

Whose 

Constant Care, Exquisite Sympathy, Ceaseless Industry, 

Unwavering Consecration, and Undying Devotion 

Encouraged, Strengthened, Supported, Inspired 

the Author op these Orations 

in Ways the World Knew Not, 

Making Possible his ever Greater Achievements, 

Herself Consumed by her Sustaining Love, 

IN Father's Name 

I DEDICATE THIS VOLUME. 



m 



ORATIONS 



PAGE 

ABRAHMI LINCOLN 1 

ULYSSES S. GRANT 113 

WILLIAM McKINLEY 187 

WASHINGTON— A PROVIDENTIAL MAN 245 

GREAT DEEDS OF GREAT MEN 259 



PORTRAITS 

CHARLES HENRY FOWLER Frontispiece ^ 

Facing Page 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 1 ^ 

ULYSSES S. GRANT 113 

WILLIAM McKINLEY 187 

GEORGE WASHINGTON 245 



INTRODUCTION 

"Patriotism is a lichen clinging to its own rock." 
It grows by the century in its original habitat. It 
defies alike the frost and ice of the frigid zone and 
the suns and sands of equatorial deserts. It re- 
sists transplanting. Captive Israelites with their 
harps hanging upon the willows of Babylon were 
not more songless than are the French immigrants, 
driven out of their faith generations ago, camping 
to-day in the heart of London, using English 
freedom, English language, and Middle Age shoes. 
A king transplanted from the Clyde to the Thames 
and followed by constant and liberal patronage has 
barely succeeded in giving a healthy color to this 
lichen carried from Scotland to England. In our 
own land, at the confluence of all the great races, 
where we have foreign cities only second in size 
to the great foreign capitals, we are under special 
need to cultivate this virtue of patriotism which is 
the religion of the soil. Patriotism, the religion of 
the soil, is the handmaid of the religion of the soul. 
It is true that a man may have patriotism and not 
have religion, but it is hard to see how he can have 
religion and not have patriotism. If one would 
establish a despotism, he ought first to establish a 



X INTRODUCTION 

government priesthood, supported by the govern- 
ment, and dependent only on the government. 
These men at the centers of power, with their 
hands on the individual and public conscience, 
determine the foundations and stability of govern- 
ment. The old governments are those which have 
carefully kept in league with the dominant faiths. 
King Edward is the head of the English Church, 
the Czar is the head of the Russian Church, William 
the Second is the chief jBgure of the German 
Lutheran Church. Thus it is important in our 
Republic that the ministers of religion should also 
be patriots. Patriotism can be maintained by a 
country only when its fires are kindled from the 
altars of religion. Righteous war is possible only 
when the principles involved spring from religion. 
The conscience of the people must be enlisted or 
the citizens will not enlist. War cannot be or- 
dained and maintained on a mere financial issue. 
It defeats itself. It costs more than it comes to. 
It consumes its own motive. Only the people's 
conscience can maintain the public spirit up to the 
fighting point. 

These considerations make doubly welcome the 
appearance of this volume of "Patriotic Orations." 
They need no introduction, for multitudes have 
heard and been captivated by them, lost in admira- 
tion divided between the subject and the speaker. 
Their author, Charles Henry Fowler, is no longer 



INTRODUCTION xi 

with us. He has "marched across the great pontoon 
into the living presence of our mighty dead." It 
is too soon to fully appreciate him. We lack the dis- 
tance essential to perspective. One must stand 
away from the mountain if he would behold its mag- 
nitude. Time is a necessary element in the analysis 
of character. The passing years are the solemn 
priests which anoint and enthrone the prophets of 
God. About living men we have opinions, about 
departed men we have judgments. When they no 
longer occupy space, dispute ambitions, or awaken 
rivalry, then we are wont to lavish epitaphs where 
we once begrudged bread. Now that Bishop 
Fowler has stepped from our midst, we see him in 
clearer light. His character was constructed upon 
a colossal scale. He would not toy with trifles. 
He was better able to bend the bow of Ulysses. 
His was a hand for great tasks and a heart for 
heavy burdens. He was a student of events. His 
intellect was cosmopolitan, his vision boundless. 
He was the constant friend whose hand never 
slipped from the grasp of a confiding brother and 
who became a full partner in the sufferings of 
those he loved. I like to think of him as he was 
known only to those who enjoyed the unstinted 
hospitality of his home, — the true exemplar of a 
friendship as rare as it was beautiful, its char- 
acteristic tenacity, its grip steel-like, its bonds 
adamant, a friendship typed by his own figure of 



xii INTRODUCTION 

the sturdy oak upon the mountain side against 
which the storm beats in vain; the loving husband 
and father, whose home was to him the vestibule 
of heaven. In public he was the commanding 
preacher of the Word, simple, direct, dramatic, 
abounding in spiritual force and power, all centered 
in Christ and him crucified, his loyalty to the Word 
of God unquestioning and unquestionable; great 
in all departments as an administrator, preacher, 
writer, lecturer, organizer — originating and devel- 
oping new fields of labor and new movements, 
planning for the enlargement and expansion of 
world-wide missionary activities, planting hospitals 
and churches, schools, colleges, and universities 
everywhere; the peerless patriot, devoted to flag 
and country, alive to the perils and conscious of 
the responsibilities of his time; himself the eulogist 
of the martyred Lincoln, the neighbor of Grant, 
the adviser of McKinley, and the personal friend 
of Roosevelt, who, as President at the time of the 
decease of this great man of the Church, sent to the 
stricken wife and son a wreath of lilies from the 
White House — a tribute of his personal sympathy 
and an official expression of the nation's grief. 
This man was the matchless orator, who with true 
historic insight and imagination made the past a 
living present, transfigured the commonplace, 
idealized the heroes of the ages until they stood 
illumined, radiant with the breathing, palpitating 



INTRODUCTION xiii 

vitality of his own onrushing manhood. He 
handled his themes as a skilled musician does his 
favorite instrument, infusing them with the im- 
pulses of his own soul, one moment blazing with 
the zeal of the patriot and the next tender as a 
sorrowing mother; at all times and in all places 
the simple, unaffected Christian, gentle in spirit, 
generous in thought, kind in speech, and boundless 
in sympathy. 

These great qualities of mind and soul which 
enriched and illuminated his character are wrought 
into the warp and woof of this book. They reap- 
pear in the deft touches by which he analyzes 
and idealizes his chosen heroes. They bind into 
unity and stamp with striking originality these 
wonderful orations. The multitudes who once sat 
enthralled beneath the imposing personality of the 
superb orator will turn with quickened step toward 
the whispering gallery of the great master stretch- 
ing through this volume. Such a book deserves 
an abiding hearing, — not only for its own cause, its 
characters and its rhetoric, but on account of the 
rich blood poured into it. The orations speak for 
themselves. They possess the heat and power of 
honest, intelligent conviction, containing thought 
enough for the gravest and patriotism enough 
for the most fervent, combining logical robust- 
ness and accuracy with mental alertness and in- 
spiring imagination, conducting the reader into 



xiv INTRODUCTION 

the throne room of the deathless personalities por- 
trayed. I know of no other book consecrated to 
patriotism comparable with this. The orations 
thrill like martial music in places and cut like 
knives in others, while at times the reader will hear 
the clash of saber and feel the rush of cavalry 
charge. If, as Milton said, *'Books contain the 
lifeblood of their authors," then this volume is the 
lifeblood of Bishop Fowler. The orations, wise 
in selection and wide in research, are magnetic in 
touch, instructive in substance, logical in under- 
current, poetical in imagery, vibrant with emotion, 
patriotic in instinct, and resistless in culmination. 
Delivered by word of mouth, they commanded a 
wide field, compelled appreciative hearing, and 
inspired many a life to higher, nobler living. 
Committed to the printed page, the field of their 
influence widens, and their place in literature be- 
comes permanent. Like the lighthouse at Calais, 
these orations will never grow dim. 

John Wesley Hill. 




ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

From an original oil portrait by Theodore Pine. Never 
before published. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



A eulogy on the life of President Lincoln was delivered by Dr. 
Fowler, then pastor of the First Methodist Episcopal Church, 
Chicago, Illinois, in Bryan Hall, in that city, on May 4, 1865, 
the day of the interment at Springfield. Subsequently, in 1894, 
Bishop Fowler, then resident in Minneapolis, prepared and deliv- 
ered the oration in substantially its present form. It was memorized 
verbatim, but never, on account of its length, all delivered at one 
time, different sections being omitted at various times. He gen- 
erally spoke for from two hours to two hours and a half, sometimes 
even three hours, seldom as short as an hour and forty minutes. 
He felt that he could not do his subject justice with less. Rarely 
did any of his many thousand hearers ever leave before he had 
finished speaking, unless compelled to do so for meeting a train 
or other necessity. 

Through its delivery in various parts of the country, and by 
the natural process of accretion and attraction, new facts were 
added and others verified, until in 1906 it was put in this final form. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

GOD'S prophets have the right of way. 
They come by divine appointment. They 
kindle a torch that centuries cannot 
quench. They utter a new evangel, or open a 
new door, or conquer a new foe, or plant a new 
republic, or found a new civilization. Serving 
most, they are greatest. 

Mankind will never forget Abraham, or Moses, comparisons 
or Leonidas, or Cincinnatus, or Pericles, or Paul, from history 
or Richelieu, or Cromwell, or Washington. Man- 
kind will never forget the hero we add to their 
little company, Abraham Lincoln, who had the 
faith of Abraham, the leadership of Moses, the 
courage of Leonidas, the contentment of Cincin- 
natus, the statesmanship of Pericles, the massive 
intellectual force of Saint Paul, the political 
sagacity of Richelieu, the integrity of Cromwell, 
and the patriotism of Washington. 

Once in the heroic days of Greece Herodotus 
went to the Olympian games. Soon he was recog- 
nized, and the multitude bore him on their shoul- 
ders around the arena, saying, " Let us honor the 
man who has written our history." So we say, 
" Let us honor the man who has made our history.'* 

3 



4 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

In the Agora, the market, the park of Athens, 
the Athenians walked among the statues of their 
heroes and of their gods, and kept themselves 
familiar with deeds of patriotism and of valor. 
Thus the defense of Athens was not the Acropolis 
with the Parthenon on its crest, but the Agora, 
where her citizens were transformed into soldiers 
and patriots and heroes. So we do well to recall 
the virtues and achievements of our mighty dead. 
We do well to turn toward our greatest American 
and stretch our little selves up against his majestic 
proportions in order that we may catch his spirit, 
exalt our standard, and grow to greater measure- 
ments. 

Take from Greece a dozen names and you 
would make barren even that classic land. Take 
away the name of Lincoln and half a dozen other 
names and there would remain few to survive 
twenty-five centuries. 

Carthage had a population of seven hundred 
thousand. She had rich dependencies in Africa, 
Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, and Spain. She worked 
the silver mines of Spain and the tin mines of 
Britain. She sent vessels into the Baltic, and 
caravans to the Nile and the Niger; yet she has 
furnished for posterity only one great man, Hanni- 
bal. Such a name as Lincoln cannot be estimated 
in dollars and cents. 

Rightly to measure Mr. Lincoln, we must 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 5 

measure him as we do a building, below the water- 
table as well as above it. He was born in the 
deepest poverty. We see him spending his early Poverty ''^ 
youth in a hut, without furniture and without 
floor — a picture of shiftlessness. Later, when a 
better cabin had been secured by the activity of 
a stepmother, we still see little Abe clambering to 
his bed in the low garret of a one-story cabin, 
clambering up on pegs driven in the logs. Still 
poverty. His father had so little of that particular 
something to which substance adheres that he 
could move when there was no motive for moving. 
But remember that this was not the poverty of 
the continent rendered despicable by centuries of 
submission to despotism, nor yet the poverty of 
the crowded city that is content with the crumbs 
that have been cast to the dogs of the opulent, but 
it was rather the poverty of the American wilder- 
ness that stands erect on the gentle bosom of 
patient Nature and leaves neither taint nor scar. 
It was out of this poverty that Mr. Lincoln made 
his way. 

Across his young life fell a shadow of sorrow The love of 
that was never lifted. The loving mother, who his mother 
kept close vigils with God, baptizing him with 
maternal love, was stricken. He saw her put into ^ 
a rude box which his father had nailed together, 
and buried in the forest by his father without 
religious services. It seemed to him unbearable. 



6 



PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 



, Months after he wrote to an itinerant Methodist 
preacher a hundred miles away to come and hold 
services over his mother's grave. The good man, 
touched by the sympathetic appeal of the nine- 
year-old lad, responded. The settlers for miles 
around, upon the invitation of the boy, came to 
the services. God comforted the lad who had 
thus honored him. As we stand by that lonely 
grave it is not difficult to see whence came the 
sympathy and faith that carried this land in their 
omnipotent arms when everything else failed. 
His Into the poverty of this cabin came a step- 

stepmother mother, who loved Abraham with the love of a 
mother, testifying, *'He never gave me a cross or 
hesitating word or look. His mind and mine, 
what little I had, ran together. He was the best 
boy that ever lived." He in turn poured out upon 
her the unmeasured love of his great nature. 
Poverty never touched his heart. On this great 
side of his nature he had the wealth of God's 
empire. 
Library Poverty limited his life on other sides. It 

limited his schooling to less than six months in- 
side the walls of a schoolhouse. It limited his 
library to six volumes, namely, the Bible, Pilgrim's 
Progress, iEsop's Fables, Weems's Life of Wash- 
ington, a History of the United States, and one 
volume of law. This collection could hardly have 
been improved. He read and re-read them till 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 7 

they were nearly all in his memory. It is easy to 
see these wrought into the texture of his great 
character. The Bible, which he nearly always 
carried in his pocket when he was not reading it, 
the Bible, with which he was more familiar than 
nine out of ten of the average preachers, the Bible, 
which he so frequently quoted in his speeches and 
addresses, gave him that supreme integrity which 
is incapable of misrepresentation, that supreme 
faith which is incapable of bewilderment, that 
supreme self-sacrifice which is incapable of sub- 
jugation, that supreme love which is incapable of 
impatience, that supreme conscientiousness which 
is incapable of injustice, that supreme sympathy 
which is incapable of harshness, and that supreme 
loyalty to duty which is incapable of hesitation. 
It was a little library, but it built mightily in him. 
Selected by the Supreme Power, it built a majestic 
character. Holland says, *'The poverty of Abra- 
ham's library was the wealth of his character." 

His education was preeminently practical. He Education 
learned to read that he "might know the world 
beyond the woods"; he learned to write that he 
"might help his seniors." His training was born 
of the rough times and surroundings. When a 
legislature could offer a bounty of two dollars for 
the scalp of a wolf and fifty dollars for the scalp 
of an Indian, it is only natural to expect lawsuits, 
often embellished by individual reprisals, "taking 



8 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

it out of the other man's hide," and political con- 
tests to ripen into free fights. These strifes were 
his schoolmasters. Mr. Lincoln at one time had 
his office over the courtroom in a building formerly 
used as a warehouse. A trapdoor opened from 
his office down to the courtroom. In one of those 
fervid political debates held in the courtroom two 
of his friends, backed by their relatives, went be- 
yond words. Lincoln, who was in his room over 
head, noted the change, and throwing back the 
trapdoor dropped onto the platform between the 
contending parties, and stopped the strife like one 
dropped from heaven. This was almost a legiti- 
mate part of his professional duty. It was expected 
of him both physically and morally to secure peace. 

Physique; Mr. Lincoln had a good physique, and I am 

glad of it, for I believe as much in a man's body 
as in his brains, and in a great many cases a great 
deal more, because there is a great deal more of 
it to believe in. He grew and grew and grew, till 
he was six feet four inches tall, had his full altitude 
at sixteen, was wrinkled from his youth up, had 
*/ the saddest face you ever saw. He had large, 
nearly regular features, when in repose dull, but 
when he started after an idea or after an antagonist 
he illumined the whole front of the building. 
There was no doubt about its being occupied then. 

Dress He dressed in a manner better adapted to the 

frontier than to his personal architecture. He 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 9 

stuck through his pants seventeen inches. His 
pants were made tight about the ankle, ragged 
and bagging at the knee. He wore a hickory 
shirt, and on his big head a coonskin cap, and 
nothing on his "trilbies." 

It is said that once coming over a spur of the Personal 
mountains Lincoln met an ugly-looking trapper, appearance 
When the trapper looked him over he leveled his 
rifle at him. Mr. Lincoln said, "Hold on there, 
stranger, what is the matter with you.?" The 
trapper said, "I took a solemn oath upon the grave 
of my mother that if I ever saw a man homelier v^ 
than I am I would shoot him." Mr. Lincoln said, 
"Well, stranger, if I am homelier than you are 
I reckon you had better shoot." 

He is described when trying to get his boat off 
from a dam where it had lodged as "wading 
around in the water with his pants rolled up five 
feet high," and I believe it. Perhaps two of the 
feet were his natural feet! 

I am glad he was not a pretty man. If there 
is anything that I think less of than I do of a 
yellow dog it is a pretty man. His rugged features, 
however, would so impress thoughtful people with 
insight into his character that they would consider 
him above the average in comeliness. Mrs. Joshua 
F. Speed, of Louisville, made a comment on 
Lincoln's looks. Joshua F. Speed was the young 
man who took Mr. Lincoln into his room at the 



10 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

back end of his store when Lincoln was too poor 
to pay office rent, and he was Lincoln's constant 
and lifelong friend. He was urged by Lincoln to 
take a place in the first Cabinet, but declined the 
honor. His brother James was put into the second 
Cabinet by Mr. Lincoln as a sort of compromise 
with Joshua F. Mrs. Speed told me once she 
thought Mr. Lincoln was the handsomest man she 
ever saw. 
Strength What Mr. Lincoln lacked in personal beauty 

was made up to him by nature in almost pre- 
ternatural strength — strength matured in the hard 
struggle of the frontier. He split four hundred 
rails for Mrs. Nancy Miller for every yard of 
/ brown jean, "dyed with walnut bark," needed to 
make a pair of trousers. When he was twenty- 
five, that is, in 1834, he got his first good suit of 
clothes — '*store clothes." He could sink an ax in 
wood farther than any other man at the frontier. 
Private Knight, who was bodyguard to see that 
Lincoln got to the War Department and home 
again in safety, says that once Mr. Lincoln picked 
up an ax and extended it by the end of the handle 
and asked him if he could do the same. When 
he tried it Lincoln said, "Hold on there, Private, 
tote fair." He could lift a barrel of whisky by 
the chines high enough to drink out of the bung- 
hole, but he never drank. This preternatural 
strength did for him several things. It made him 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 11 

chieftain yonder in the wilderness. It enabled him 
to carry for four years before the wondering eyes 
of mankind the heaviest burden ever packed upon 
man or camel. It enabled him to work with 
abilities unwearied, at the top of his condition, for 
twice the average hours of the average workingman 
at the numberless questions of the nation's life. 
It gave him the most perfect mastery of the multi- 
plied details in every department of the govern- 
ment's interests, and made him the best ultimate 
judge on all the great problems of the nation's 
destiny. 

Mr. Lincoln must be judged and measured in Environment 
his environment. In a republic the Supreme Court, 
the place of final appeal, is public opinion. This 
is the power back of all law, and back of all con- 
stitutions, and back of all civilizations. This is 
the power that rises in shadowy outline, but in 
vast proportions and armed with resistless energies, 
before which the most ancient thrones melt like 
toys of wax, in whose breath hoary institutions 
vanish like a baby's dreams, at whose touch the 
most sacred forms of religious service wither like 
wreathes of leaves, and the deepest convictions of 
religious purpose fade like the breath of the run- 
ning hound in the morning air. If there is any 
power on earth that can contend with God for the 
throne of the world, that power is public opinion. 
Mr. Lincoln said, "Public opinion is everything. 



12 



PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 



Conditions 
in Illinois 



Feeling of 
the South 



He who molds public opinion goes deeper than he 
who enacts statutes or pronounces decisions. He 
enables statutes and decisions to be executed." 

Illinois was a free State. A colored man cried, 
**Hot pies!" A soldier bought one, put his teeth 
down onto a frozen pie. He said, "You black 
scamp, did you not say, *Hot pies' .?" "Yes, I 
did, boss, but that is only the name of them." So 
that when I say Illinois was a free State, remember 
that is only the name of it. I will tell you what 
kind of a free State we were. In the thirties we 
covered our books of legislation with the infamous 
"Black Laws." Free colored people were im- 
prisoned or scourged from the State. Governor 
Coles, from Virginia, was indicted and fined for 
settling his freed slaves on farms about him. The 
State made the holding of antislavery views an 
indictable crime. The Inquisition nevei did worse. 
Mr. Lincoln, then, in 1837, a member of the 
Legislature, could find but one man in the Legis- 
lature, Dan Stone, who would join with him in a 
mild protest against such outrageous enactments. 

Then there was the South, a large part of this 
problem. I am not here to abuse the South. It 
would be cowardly on this platform. I can find 
you platforms where it would not be healthy. I 
have my even share of the spirit of the sixties. 
But since I have seen the grandson of General 
Grant and the grandnephew of General Lee 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 13 

marching side by side under the flag against a 
common enemy, I wipe the old slate clean. The 
spirit of '61 was unique in history. John A. 
Logan got Mr. Lincoln's consent to go South and 
see if he could not persuade Jefferson Davis out 
of secession. Mr. Davis received Mr. Logan 
politely as an old party friend. Mr. Logan pre- 
sented his argument. Mr. Davis shook his head. 
Mr. Logan said, "Tell us what will satisfy you; 
we will take it to our friends in the North; we 
think we can carry the country on it; we cannot 
have secession." Mr. Davis said, "Mr. Logan, 
only one thing will satisfy us, and that is the 
unquestioned recognition of the Confederacy." Mr. 
Logan said, "Jefferson Davis, this means war. 
The next time you see me will be at the head of 
loyal legions trying to butcher you rebels." 

Some one asked Floyd what would satisfy them. 
He said, "Sign a blank sheet of paper and let us 
fill it out and we will spit on it." It is no wonder 
that Mr. Lincoln's first inaugural address repre- 
sented him as a man on his knees beseeching men 
not to commit hara-kiri, rather than as a ruler of 
a great people demanding obedience to the Con- 
stitution and the laws. 

In the forties came the Mexican War, conceived increase in 
in sin and born in iniquity. Frederick the Great, s^a^e States 
once about to declare war, asked his secretary to 
write the proclamation. The secretary began, 



14. PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

"Whereas in the Providence of God" — this, that, 
and the other. Frederick said, *'Stop that lying; 
simply say, 'Frederick wants some more land.' " 
The core of the Mexican War was this — we wanted 
another tier of slave States and we meant to have 
it. Illinois led the gang for the Mexican War. 
The President sent a message to Congress saying, 
"The Mexicans have invaded our soil and massa- 
cred our citizens.'* 

Mr. Lincoln, then in Congress, introduced the 
famous "Spot Resolutions," in which he asked the 
President to specify the spot where these outrages 
were perpetrated. There was no such spot. I 
refer to these items chiefly to indicate that while 
some of us thought Mr. Lincoln was almost pro- 
slavery, he was so slow, yet he was leagues and 
leagues in advance of the people he represented. 
Conservatism As late as 1863, whcn the Proclamation of Eman- 
of the North cJpation Came, nearly every soldier in some reg- 
iments, and some soldiers in every regiment, said, 
"If I had known that this war was to free the 
nigger I never would have enlisted." Mr. Lincoln 
was on the advance line. He was at headquarters 
and saw the whole field. He saw that we must 
hold the border States at all costs. If Maryland, 
Kentucky, and Missouri had gone into the Con- 
federacy it would have thrown the line of battle 
one tier of States farther north. It would have 
made the Confederacy so large that we could not 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 15 

have worn them out. Holding the border was a 
question of life and death. There was a great 
host of voters who went with that magnificent 
prince, Charles Sumner, who were hardly willing 
to save the Union with slavery. There was 
another great host of voters who went with that 
great statesman, William H. Seward, who would 
save the Union without reference to slavery. 
There was another great host of voters who went 
with "the Little Giant," Douglas, of Illinois, who 
would hardly save the Union without slavery. All 
these blooded, spirited horses were running around 
in the great ring of the North at the top of their 
speed in all possible directions, and Mr. Lincoln 
had to ride them all at once. And he did it. All 
of this entered into the problem which Mr. Lincoln 
had to solve. 

The South was sensitive and aggressive. By The South 
aggressive I mean they furnished men for nearly ^s^ressive 
every place of emolument and power. Virginia 
was called "The Mother of Presidents." We of 
the North were mudsills. The short of the case 
is this : we, the North, saddled ourselves and asked 
the South to get on and ride, and the South got 
on and rode. They despised and ridiculed. 

The South was sensitive as well as aggressive. The South 
Let me show you. There was a little sheet known s^^^***^^ 
as "The Liberator." It was some larger than my 
two hands, possibly as large as yours. It was 



16 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

published by a then unknown man by the name 
of William Lloyd Garrison, in a town on our 
North Atlantic seacoast, known on the old maps 
by the name of Boston. The Governor of each 
slave State demanded its suppression. The Legis- 
lature of Georgia, in December, 1831, offered five 
thousand dollars reward for the apprehension of 
this man Garrison and his delivery upon the soil 
of Georgia. The Mayor of Boston made reply, 
and in it he said, "Neither I nor any member of 
my city government, nor any friend of any member 
of my city government, had ever heard of this man 
Garrison, or had ever seen a copy of this paper; 
but upon extended and careful inquiry I do find 
that such a sheet is published in a sort of hole, 
where the man has for an assistant one little negro 
and for supporters a few people of every color 
and of no reputation." This little, obscure, insig- 
nificant, contemptible sheet made the great warlike 
South foam at the mouth. I say the South was 
sensitive. This entered into the problem Mr. 
Lincoln had to solve. 
Journey to Mr. Lincoln's journey to Washington was not 
Washington fpgg from peril. Pinkerton's detectives, disguised 
as railroad hands, were busy night and day white- 
washing the railroad bridges and cleaning out the 
cattle passes. 

The 22d day of February, the anniversary of 
the birth of George Washington, in the year 1861, 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN IT 

Mr. Lincoln stepped out of the side door of the 
Governor's Mansion in Harrisburg and was slipped 
into a closed carriage, with one companion, and 
driven rapidly down to where Second Street 
intersects the Central Pennsylvania Railroad, and 
there, with every train between Harrisburg and 
Philadelphia removed from the track and every 
telegraph line coming into Harrisburg discon- 
nected, he was put into a car, hurried over to 
Philadelphia, from where he caught the midnight 
train from New York for Washington, was slipped 
into a sleeping car with that solitary companion, 
and unrecognized made his way through the bands 
of marauders that had taken a solemn oath never 
to eat till they had killed Lincoln. At six o'clock 
on the morning of the 23d of February he stepped 
out of that sleeping car into the streets of Wash- 
ington, to be welcomed as President-elect of the 
United States by only two men, William H. ^' 
Seward, of New York, and E. B. Washburn, of 
Illinois. Did ever a man before by so simple a 
process step into the gaze, and into the wonder, 
and into the admiration of mankind? But Mr. 
Lincoln was in Washington, and beneath his feet 
was the solid rock of the government; but before 
the fourth of March following that solid rock 
turned to shifting sand. 

Mr. Lincoln found himself alone in Washington. 
Let me show you. The navy of the United States 



18 



PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 



Alone in 
midst of 
national 
difficulties 



then consisted of only ninety wooden vessels. 
Forty-five of these were in such condition that if 
they had been untied from the dock they would 
have sunk like bullets. The other forty-five that 
could float were sent away to the Indian Ocean 
or to the Chinese Sea, or tied up under Southern 
forts by what was known as the "Buchanan- 
Pickens Compact." Pickens was the Governor of 
South Carolina. There remained only four vessels 
with which Mr. Lincoln was expected to defend 
thousands of miles of sea front. The army of 
the United States was marched down into the 
center of Texas or onto the border of Mexico under 
commissioned ofiicers sworn to hand the soldiers 
over to the State authorities. Be it said to the 
everlasting honor of the common soldiers that 
with their naked bayonets they made their way 
back to the national service, and not one ever 
turned his back on the flag. The treasury of the 
United States was worse scuttled than the navy 
and worse scattered than the army. Howell Cobb, 
Secretary of the treasury, undertook to make a 
loan of only ten million dollars. He dickered for 
weeks and weeks with the capitalists and finally 
succeeded in placing five million dollars at twelve 
per cent. He stuck fast in the middle of the loan, 
could not get another dollar. The credit of the 
Union was gone. The sinews of war were cut. 
Mr. Lincoln found himself alone in Washington, 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 19 

without a navy, without an army, without muni- 
tions, and without experienced advisers. They 
came down from the Bench of the Supreme Court. 
They came out of the Cabinet of the President. 
They poured out of the Senate. They rushed out 
of the lower House. They swarmed out of every 
oflSce in Washington. Crazed with the delirium 
of treason, they rushed toward Richmond and 
Montgomery, where the Southern Confederacy was 
formally organized. They came out of the army 
of the United States; men trained at the expense 
of the government and honored and trusted by 
the government, went South, plunging into the 
rebellion. There remained true to the government 
only one eminent oflScer of that date; that was old 
General Scott, and he was so old that he could not 
mount a horse. Something ailed his spinal column, 
for he actually said, *'I would say, 'Erring sisters, 
go in peace.' " Not much fight about that for a 
major-general who is to suppress a rapidly spread- 
ing revolt. But this must be said to the honor 
of the old hero : while he gave his heart to Virginia, 
he never turned his back upon the flag. Mr. 
Lincoln found himself alone in Washington with- 
out experienced advisers. 

All the questions came back to Mr. Lincoln for Final 
settlement. He was the final authority. When the authority on 
first inaugural address appeared a great many * ^"^^ °^ 
people over the North said, "William H. Seward!" 



20 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

But Jerry Black, who was the brains and the 
political badness of Buchanan's Cabinet, the man 
who advised the Cabinet that it was "not com- 
petent for the general government to coerce a 
sovereign State" — Black, with his superb intel- 
lectual ability, read that address and said to his 
friends, *' Gentlemen, we have underrated the man 
from Illinois. There is only one man in America 
that can write that document, and that is not 
William H. Seward. We shall find Mr. Lincoln 
the brainiest man on the continent." And we 
did. 

The questions multiplied with every hour, and 
all came back to Mr. Lincoln to be answered. Who 
could settle the relations between the general 
government and a sovereign State .^ It was not 
state rights, but state sovereignty, which was pro- 
tected by the Constitution of 1787. We had had 
but one speech on the subject, and that by Daniel 
Webster in 1830. Who could define the relations 
between that judge with the ermine of the Supreme 
Court about his shoulders, and that little corporal 
with half a dozen bayonets behind him.? That 
corporal could put that judge in the guardhouse. 
We did not know it; we had it all to learn. Who 
could tell what should be done with that fugitive 
slave fleeing from a rebellious master, under the 
Fugitive Slave Laws still in force .^^ Ben Butler 
had not yet invented the convenient term "contra- 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 21 

band of war." The questions all came back to 
Mr. Lincoln. He had to create and organize 
armies, to appoint and promote officers, to dictate 
and secure the enactment of appropriate legisla- 
tion, do much that in time of peace would have 
been done by the courts. All the questions came 
back to Mr. Lincoln. He had to settle them in 
the wildest rush of unprecedented events. With 
the cotton States in open revolt, with Virginia 
violently treacherous, Maryland whirling in the 
maelstrom threatening secession, the border States 
all threatening treason, with Baltimore blocking 
the passage of Union troops, with all telegraphic 
and railroad connections with the North severed, 
far away from his friends in the North, without an 
army, without munitions, without money, without 
credit, with a rapidly growing rebel army within 
cannonshot of the Capitol forbearing to enter and 
seize it, restrained perhaps only by Almighty God 
— thus environed, standing alone on that shifting 
point of sand, with all the great questions, new, 
imperative, vital, pressing upon his mind, and the 
destiny of the Republic, the last possible experi- 
ment of popular government, in his arms,with the 
horrors of a long civil war upon his ever sad heart, 
with a Cabinet strangers to him, and with the 
great governments of the Old World so anxious 
to destroy the Republic that England rushed for- 
ward to give the rebellion a standing as a belligerent 



22 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

even before the Confederacy had shed a drop of 
blood or won a victory or had a way out to the 
sea — thus crowded on every side, standing on that 
shifting point of sand, compelled to answer all 
questions, when he could not afford a single blun- 
der, Mr. Lincoln stood alone with his faith in God 
and in the people and in liberty and in the future. 
It was in answering these questions in this school 
of destiny, in the postgraduate course of events, 
that Mr. Lincoln grew to his massive intellectual 
greatness. 
His growth He grcw up to these great duties by a steady, 
marvelous, lifelong growth. At the end of his 
first decade in an Indiana frontier forest, with ax 
in hand, he was taking his first course in chopping 
down a forest and in building up a great physique. 
At the end of his second decade he had taken his 
first journey of a thousand miles to New Orleans, 
, had had his first contact with the great world, 
marketing his flatboat load of produce, and had 
taken his first oath to strike slavery. At the end 
of the third decade he had won local fame and 
confidence as merchant, postmaster, deputy county 
surveyor, captain of volunteers in the Black Hawk 
War, and three terms of service in the Legislature 
of the State of Illinois. At the end of the fourth 
decade he had served one term in the Congress of 
the United States, and had advanced to the popular 
rank of party leader, so that he could afford to 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 23 

decline the governorship of Oregon. At the end 
of the fifth decade he had made a national reputa- 
tion as a great lawyer and had achieved imperish- 
able fame as the master in the joint debate with 
Douglas, the most distinguished political debate 
of record. 

We must believe in his supreme greatness for Magnitude 
his very work's sake. The war was an enormous °^ *^® ^^^ 
undertaking. Its cost appalls us. Its figures 
eclipse all the figures of the great historic wars 
and stagger the comprehension of the human mind. 
Two million six hundred thousand Union soldiers 
surrounded, drove in, wore out, killed, wounded, or 
captured one million five hundred thousand Con- 
federate soldiers. It cost six hundred and ten 
thousand lives, and more than ten billions of 
money, a vast hecatomb offered on the altar of 
liberty. So well pleased was God with the sacri- 
fice that he paid it back in the decade in population 
more than one thousand per cent for the loss and 
in money nearly one hundred per cent for the 
outlay. He advanced our population from thirty- 
one millions to thirty-eight millions, and our 
wealth from sixteen billions to thirty, in that 
bloody decade. 

Mr. Lincoln made no mistake when he said, 
*'The contract awarded to me on the 6th of Novem- 
ber, 1860, was a big job." He was sent out to 
kill the dragon in the sea of American politics, the 



24 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

serpent that ambushed beneath the drooping 
boughs of the palmetto tree. 

"To kill twice dead that horrid snake 
And off his scaly sldn to take, 
And through his head to drive a stake. 
And every bone within him break. 
And of his flesh mincemeat to make; 
To burn, to sear, to boil, to bake. 
Then in a heap the whole to rake. 
And over it the besom shake. 
And sink it fathoms in the lake. 
Whence after all quite wide awake 
Comes back again that same old snake." 

A big job To make a finality of this snake was "a big 

job." We need not be surprised if the tail wiggles 
for a century. It was a big job. Let us emphasize 
it. Mr. Beecher did us a great service in the early 
days of the war talking on our side. Talking in 
Exeter Hall, crowded to its utmost capacity, he 
was hooted by the crowd. That people that gave 
their sympathies to the South and not to us yelled 
at him, "Why don't you put down the rebellion 
in sixty days, as you said you would?" Mr. 
Beecher, at the top of his condition, yelled back 
at them, "Because we are fighting Americans and 
not British!" — the best fighting blood known to 
history, Anglo-Saxon Americans; more millions 
than were ever in revolt before in known history, 
and the interests of the last experiment of a free 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 25 

government, *'of the people, by the people, and for 
the people," at stake. All things counted in, it 
is by all odds and far away the biggest job ever 
given to one man. Mr. Lincoln must be measured 
by what he did. To-day the hindsight of the 
civilized world harmonizes with his foresight. In 
rearing the colossal structure of a regenerated free 
government he had a vast amount of raw material, Raw 
and had God to help him. He had a huge patriotic °^t^"als 
mob, extending from the Ohio River to the Great 
Lakes, and from Maine to Minnesota, a mob that 
knew nothing about war but its pluck, nothing 
about fighting but its heroism. The people were 
like the old woman I once knew in Lynn, Massa- 
chusetts, who said, "My son Ike has gone to be a 
soldier. He is down at Molasses Junction on 
McClellan's hindquarters and has been promoted; 
he is either a genera// or a corpora//, I don't know 
which, but he is fighting for his country." That is 
all we knew about war. I drilled a company; yet 
when I began I did not know the difference be- 
tween a lieutenant and a lieutenant-colonel. But 
I knew more than the men did, for I drilled them. 
Mr. Lincoln had this great patriotic mob behind 
him and had to mold it with his touch, and inspire 
it with his breath. Think of a builder turned into 
a wild, raw continent and ordered to build a royal 
city, yet left without tools, only furnished with Without 
plenty of raw materials, of stone in the quarries, *°^^ 



26 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

and of minerals in the mines, and of woods in the 
forests. Such a man must have vast abilities, every 
sort of gift and practical knowledge and skill, must 
embody in himself all the abilities of a complicated 
civilization. That is the case of Mr. Lincoln 
standing on that crumbling point of sand with 
abundant materials but without tools, ordered to 
create a continental city for the home of Liberty. 
He had to embody in himself all abilities; to har- 
monize Cabinet secretaries and dictate their pol- 
icies, to readjust national and state relations, to 
combine military and civil authorities, to dictate 
decisions of international law for all the great 
courts of the world, and so dictate them that each 
decision would command the approval of all the 
Great Powers not personally involved, and so hold 
those personally interested in the grip of his pur- 
pose that they would accept the order; not least 
of all he had to decide the fate of every bounty 
jumper, deserter, or sleeping sentinel, and he had 
to stand daily by the hour in the Beggar's Court, 
to hear the petitions of the poor and friendless, 
who found in him the only man great enough to 
feel and understand all their wants. Surely this 
is a big worker at "a big job.'* 
Gentleness He wrought amoug us with such silent majesty 
and strength of purposc and such gentle and pitying manner 
that we hardly knew that he was at work at all. 
He seemed resting or playing, just as he did at 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN S7 

City Point when he took up a young kitten be- 
longing to General Grant and gently opened its 
eyes, but we knew what problem was on his great 
heart when he said, "Little kitten, I wish I could 
open the eyes of more of my blinded countrymen 
as easily as I have opened yours." So quietly did 
he stretch himself to his vast undertaking that he 
seemed like one taking his rest; yet he took up 
this continent by its edges, its rim, and shook it 
till our lakes boiled and our rivers gurgled like 
opened arteries — shook it till he shook the vulture 
out of our eagle, the fear out of our citizens, and 
the bondman out of his chains. In a single admin- 
istration he lifted us through the growth of ten 
centuries. 

When Mr. Lincoln came into the government he Proposed 
found an amendment to the Constitution of the Constitutional 
United States, signed by Buchanan, and he in- Versed ^'^ 
dorsed it in his inaugural address. It was adopted 
by the necessary two thirds of the Senate and 
more than two thirds of the House, making most 
sweeping guaranties to slavery — "That no amend- 
ment shall be made to the Constitution which will 
authorize or give Congress the power to abolish or 
interfere within any State with the domestic 
institutions thereof, including that of persons held 
to labor or service by the laws of said State." 
Mr. Seward, as Secretary of State, sent this to the 
States. If the South had accepted this, it would 



28 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

have been the Thirteenth Amendment, but when 
Mr. Lincoln had landed the nation on the shores 
of honorable peace and upon the solid rock of 
universal freedom, and had folded his arms in 
final peace, there had passed the Senate and House 
at his earnest solicitation, by the necessary two- 
thirds vote, another amendment to be known 
forever as the "Thirteenth Amendment," by which 
"neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except 
as a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall 
have been duly convicted, shall exist within the 
United States, or any place subject to their juris- 
diction." From the constitutional establishment 
and protection of slavery to the constitutional and 
perpetual prohibition of slavery is a march of a 
thousand years. Mr. Lincoln took us up in his 
strong arms and in one quadrennium swung us 
through the circle of ten centuries. 
Analysis of Let US analyze Mr. Lincoln if we are able. This 
his character t^gk is difficult ou accouut of his Symmetry. He 
was SO much like a sphere that he projected 
farthest in every direction. His comprehension is 
to us impossible on account of his immensity, for 
a man can be comprehended only by his peers. 
The beginning of his greatness is to be found in 
the way God Almighty mixed the mud out of 
which he was made. He was not made out of 
any fool mud. See how he handled himself when 
a proposition was presented. He always asked 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 29 

first, "Is it right ?" The beginning of his greatness 
was down in his moral sense. His moral sense Moral sense 
manifested itself in absolute truthfulness. It gave 
him moral uprightness. It kept him unseduced by 
the temptations of his profession, untainted by the 
corruption of politics, unblamable in public admin- 
istration. It covered him like a mantle of light 
and purity let fall upon him from the worlds out 
of sight. Guided by an invisible hand, like a bird 
of passage, he moved ever toward his unseen 
destiny. Supported by the Infinite, he came 
calmly to the people, confident of the ultimate 
triumph of the right. This made him hopeful in 
the darkness and steady in the light. 

The next element in his make-up was his reason. Reason 
He was not an intuitive man, if there be any such. 
By an intuitive man I mean one who jumps at a 
conclusion and sticks to it right or wrong. By an 
intuitive man I mean a man who in religious 
matters has a private wire. Did you not know 
that you can never argue with a man with a private 
wire.'^ He always has the last word from head- 
quarters and can down you every time. He runs 
his private wire up to the summit of his egotism, 
and it is so long that he thinks that he is talking 
with God, but he is not. Mr. Lincoln was not 
that kind. He was a reasoning man. He tested 
his premises as best he could, put his foot forward 
upon them, then cautiously straightened up to stay. 



sense 



30 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

This made him slow, but it made him what Mr. 
Gough called "awiPul sot." I remember a bright 
preacher who prayed the Lord to give Mr. Lincoln 
backbone, when he had the stiffest old spinal 
column that ever stood perpendicular to the earth's 
surface. 
Common The ucxt element in his make-up was his com- 

mon sense, the most uncommon thing to be found 
among men. Early in the war Mr. Cameron was 
removed from being Secretary of War and Mr. 
Edwin M. Stanton was put in his place. Imme- 
diately a caucus of Republican senators and 
congressmen was called, and by a nearly or quite 
unanimous vote decided that it was the duty of 
the President to remove all the other members of 
the Cabinet, to make a clean sweep of the Cabinet. 
They appointed a committee, with Charles Sumner 
at its head, to wait upon the President and tell 
him their decision. Mr. Lincoln heard Senator 
Sumner through, then said, ^'Senator Sumner, I 
think I had better tell you about an old friend of 
mine, a farmer out in Illinois. His wife had a 
great flock of chickens. Every night some of those 
chickens would vanish. His wife said to him, 
*William, you take the gun and go out and kill 
whoever or whatever it is that is destroying those 
chickens.' He took the gun and went out; after a 
while he returned and said, 'Wife, I have killed 
one of them, but there are six more.' She said. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 31 

*WillIam, go right back and kill the other six.' 
He said, 'Wife, I have tried to be a good husband 
to you. I have always done everything you wanted 
me to do. I have killed one of them, but I will 
not kill the other six; if killing this one has made ^ 
such an awful stench it will kill this whole com- 
munity if I kill the other six.' " Charles Sumner 
whirled round, mad as a March hare, and went 
out of the White House, the committee at his heels. 
Out on the sidewalk in front of the White House 
Sumner turned round and said to old Thaddeus 
Stevens, "Mr. Stevens, don't you think it is an 
outrage that when a committee of Republican 
senators and congressmen wait upon this man to 
tell him what they think ought to be done in a 
critical time like this, that committee should be 
dismissed with a story about a lot of polecats.''" 
Mr. Stevens stood with his hands on his sides 
laughing so he could not speak. Finally he said, 
"Senator Sumner, I have no doubt that seen from 
the standpoint of your Boston culture it is a 
grievous offense, but I tell you there is an almighty 
sight of common sense in what 'Old Abe' says, 
and that is what we want just now." 

These three, his moral sense, his reason, and his 
common sense, were the three fixed points through 
which the great circle of his majestic character 
was drawn. Had he lacked either of these he 
would have failed, and we would have been buried 



32 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

beneath the ruins of the Republic. Without the 
^. first he would have been a villain; without the 
second he would have been a fool; without the 
third he would have been a dreamer; with them all 
he was Abraham Lincohi. 
His stories Take a glance at Mr. Lincoln's parables. I 
have in my library several volumes of Lincoln's 
Stories, and Stories of Lincoln. Very good read- 
ing, a little at a time. But I will venture that Mr. 
Lincoln never heard of one in ten of those stories, 
though he did tell a good many stories. When he 
had been in the White House about six weeks a 
man from central Illinois, a Mr. Wilson, an old 
friend of Lincoln's, came into the White House and 
said, '*Mr. Lincoln, you are disgracing the nation 
with your pothouse stories." Mr. Lincoln straight- 
ened himself to his full altitude and said, "You 
have no right to speak to me thus. But for my 
office I would whip you in a minute. Get out of 
my presence!" Mr. Wilson went. Three days 
afterward Mr. Lincoln sent the name of this 
identical Wilson in to the Senate, as third auditor of 
the treasury. Soon a man ran over to the White 
House and said, "Mr. Lincoln, do you know what 
this man Wilson is saying about you ? He is telling 
how he told you of your pothouse stories and you 
drove him from the White House." Mr. Lincoln 
asked, "What has that to do with it.? I know 
that Mr. Wilson is an honest and an intelligent 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 3S 

man, and that is the kind I want for that 
office.'* 

He told a story one day in a meeting of the 
Cabinet during the dark times. One of the Sec- 
retaries sniveled out, *'I don't see, President 
Lincoln, how you can tell a story in such a time 
as this." Mr. Lincoln, looking at the Secretary, 
said, "Mr. Secretary, I have no manner of doubt 
that I carry this thing many times heavier than all 
of you put together. But for these stories I would 
die." These stories were a sort of vent giving a 
little relief to his ever sad and overburdened 
heart. 

His stories were embodiments of moral and 
political science, parables, keeping the common 
people and the administration together. But you 
cannot measure Mr. Lincoln by his stories any 
more than you can measure one of our North 
Atlantic greyhounds by the foam around its prow. 

Let us look at some of the indications of his 
massive intellectual greatness. The first that 
caught the public eye and the public ear was Mr. 
Lincoln's ability as a speaker. 

Mr. Lincoln was great as a speaker. As a As a speaker 
speaker he stands at the forefront, with no man 
of record in advance of him. He was about half- 
way between the rounded periods of Daniel Web- 
ster and the crisp, sharp utterances of modern 
newspaper editorials. 



34 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

As a stump speaker he was by all odds the 
greatest the world ever saw. He could put the 
extinguisher on an antagonist in thirty-one seconds. 
Talking, over in Illinois, with a lawyer, who had 
great prodigality of language and great parsimony 
of truth, Mr. Lincoln answered him by saying: 
"Gentlemen of the jury, you must not blame this 
man for what has been going on. He knows 
nothing about it. He is just like a little steamboat 
that used to go snorting and cavorting up and 
down the Sangamon River. It had a boiler five 
feet long and a whistle twelve feet long. Every 
time it whistled it stopped. So it is with this 
gentleman. He seems to be a man of integrity 
when he keeps his mouth shut, but when he opens 
his mouth he shuts his intellect. He knows 
nothing of what has been going on. You must 
not blame him.'* Mr. Lincoln was the perfect 
master of all the tricks of the stump speaker. But 
in his great speeches, upon which his fame safely 
rests, there is not the slightest indication of this 
ability. There are traditions among the old law- 
yers and political leaders of Illinois of occasional 
deliverances that were resistless in their power and 
overwhelming in their effects. He went to the 
meeting in Bloomington, Illinois, May 29, 1858, 
where the Republican Party of Illinois was organ- 
ized. His friends besought him not to waste 
himself. They followed him into the coach and 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 35 

pleaded with him. It did not avail. He was under 
the orders of a solid moral conviction. He be- 
lieved he had come to the parting of the ways. 
With the spirit of a martyr he followed duty. He 
went, and his speech was above description. At 
one time he appealed to the friends of Henry Clay 
and warned them against the insincerity of men 
clinging to dead issues, who tried to resuscitate 
their political corpse by casting it into the grave 
of Clay, that his bones might galvanize it into life. 
So powerful were his paragraphs that the audience, 
lawyers, judges, politicians, the entire audience in 
tears, shouting their approval, sprang to their feet 
and upon the seats and desks, lifted by the spell 
of the great soul that swayed and swept everything 
before him. An old judge of highest character, who 
was present, told me of this years after. He said, 
*'I never heard such speaking before. I shall never 
hear it again. I found myself standing on the top 
of my desk lifted by the moral and heroic sublimity 
of his utterances. He seemed to embody all the 
great issues of the coming conflict, and with the 
devotion of a martyr he put the conviction upon 
us. I could not sleep that night. I walked my 
room till morning." 

His first great speech of record was at the State First 
Fair, in Springville, Illinois, October 4, 1854. g^^^t speech 
Douglas had just returned from Washington after 
the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. The 



36 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

Missouri Compromise was enacted in 1820, conse- 
crating the Territories to freedom. Douglas had 
secured its repeal, opening the Territories to 
slavery. He came home to make his peace with 
an irritated constituency. Mr. Douglas was a great 
debater. I have heard him debate by the half day. 
He said things that I knew were out of harmony 
with the facts, yet he would state them with such 
a show of logic and such a display of conviction 
that he would make you believe them almost in 
spite of yourself. He was a great debater. I think 
Mr. Douglas was the greatest man in the great 
Democratic Party of that time. For three hours he 
pounded away at his defense. When he had fin- 
ished the crowd called out Mr. Lincoln, who was 
present. Mr. Lincoln answered him. Herndon, 
Lincoln's old law partner, says, "Mr. Lincoln 
demonstrated that he had not lounged about the 
libraries of the Capitol in vain. It was not the 
old Lincoln, the pride and pet of Sangamon 
County. It was a newer and greater Lincoln, that 
no man there had ever seen or heard, but seeing 
and hearing could never forget." Herndon says, 
"The Nebraska Bill and Mr. Douglas's argument 
were shivered like an oak by a thunderbolt, torn 
and rent by hot bolts of truths." Mr. Douglas 
was utterly discomfited, and made but brief and 
feeble reply. From that day Mr. Lincoln was the 
great speaker, debater, orator, upon whom the new 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 37 

party relied and to whom all eyes turned for 
monumental occasions. 

Where will you find a more telling speech than 
his great speech of June, 1858, known as the 
"House Divided Against Itself" speech? He 
startled the nation with that ringing prophecy, "I 
believe this government cannot endure permanently 
half-slave and half -free." 

It was trite in the sixties to praise the Lincoln- Lincoln- 
Douglas debate of 1858. It was the meeting of ^^^^^^ 
two seas, the sea of the dark ages and the sea of 
the new ages. It was the conflict of two great 
civilizations, the civilization of caste and aristoc- 
racy founded on wrong and on human slavery, 
and the civilization of manhood and freedom 
founded on the discovery of the individual man. 
The champions were the greatest debaters and 
platform speakers two systems had produced, 
the Rail-Splitter, Lincoln, and the Little Giant, 
Douglas. It is above comparison with any political 
debate known to history in the systems they 
represented, in the champions pushed to the front, 
in the principles underlying the contest, in the 
ability with which it was conducted, and in the 
consequences flowing out of it. Mr. Lincoln's 
triumphs in this great encounter, even had he 
rendered no other service to his age, would 
have secured to him imperishable honors at the 
judgment bar of mankind, and would have 



speech 



38 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

justified his living at the judgment bar of 
God. 
Cooper Perhaps his greatest and most decisive speech 

Institute ^as his Cooper Institute speech of February 27, 
1860. He was in a new field, surrounded by the 
chieftains of the coming party. There sat William 
H. Seward, with a nose like a Mohawk warrior; 
there sat Horace Greeley, with his old white hat; 
there in the chair sat Thurlow Weed, the greatest 
Roman of them all. It was the one opportunity 
of a lifetime, and Mr. Lincoln was equal to it. 
He rose to the occasion, as he always did. There 
were none of the arts of the stump speaker. It 
was a great, statesmanlike handling of the nation's 
life. It was like a plea before the Supreme Court. 
It candidly embodied all the facts of the situation 
in simple Saxon. It lifted the new party above 
the misrepresentation of his adversaries and joined 
it indissolubly with the principles and administra- 
tion of Washington. It opened a consistent, easy 
way for every patriot to come to its support. It 
abused no one. It dealt with principles. For two 
hours that audience smiled, approved, cheered, 
gave themselves to the new party and their hearts 
to the new speaker. Nearly all the great dailies 
printed it in full. The Tribune said, *'No man 
ever before made such an impression on his first 
appeal to a New York audience.'* It was struck 
off as a campaign document. They appointed a 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 39 

committee of scholars to test its accuracy. The 
committee declared "as almost incredible the ac- 
curacy of his statements and the wide extent of his 
knowledge." From the first line to the last he 
travels with a swift, unerring directness, which no 
logician ever excelled. This speech crystallized 
the issues floating in the public mind, typed the 
Union Party, furnished it with a platform and 
candidate, gave it victory at the polls, a spirit and 
an administration for four years of terror and 
struggle for national existence. Measured by the 
severest tests of a great speech, by the use of simple 
Saxon, by the beauty of its rhetoric, by the grip 
of its logic, by the breadth of its historical illus- 
trations, by the range of its research, by its freedom 
from scholastic pretensions, by its brotherly, con- 
ciliatory, yet unflinching treatment of its adver- 
saries, by its wise admonitions to its friends, by its 
manly avowal of the power of the right, by its 
reverential acknowledgment of God, by the vast 
results it achieved — by all these great elements that 
make a great speech, it is equal to any speech 
recorded in any language. There is but one speech 
of record worthy to be placed by the side of it, 
and that is Daniel Webster's greatest speech, his 
reply to Hayne, of South Carolina. 

I do not wonder that the Professor of .Rhetoric 
of New York College followed him night after 
night and from place to place, that he might 



40 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

lecture on the greatest speeches he ever heard, 
and discover if possible the secret of this great 
power. 
Gettysburg If anything more is needed to give Mr. Lincoln 
speech ^ placc with the greatest speakers, then take that 

matchless speech at Gettysburg, which will live as 
long as the English language. The most polished 
orator of New England, Edward Everett, with 
months for preparation and the nation's dead 
around him for inspiration, delivered one of his 
greatest orations for two hours. When he had 
ended Mr. Lincoln delivered that brief speech, and 
when he had ended Mr. Everett ran up to him in 
great excitement and said, "I would gladly give 
you my two hours for your twenty sentences"; and 
well he might, for those twenty sentences would 
carry him as a matchless orator for twenty cen- 
turies. All men will feel the deep thrill of the 
simple justice of his words: *'We cannot dedicate, 
we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this 
ground. The brave men, living and dead, who 
struggled here have consecrated it far above our 
poor power to add or detract. The world will 
j little note nor long remember what we say here, 
but it can never forget what they did here. It is 
for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to 
j the unfinished work, that these dead shall not 
I have died in vain; that this nation, under God, 
I shall have a new birth of freedom ; and that govern- 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 41 

ment of the people, by the people, for the people,; 
shall not perish from the earth." None but the[ 
clearest and greatest mind could have projected! 
such utterances. They would hardly shock us as at 
part of the Sermon on the Mount. It touched the! 
heart of the nation like the benediction after prayer. 
The University of London, seeking specimens of 
perfect English to be studied by her pupils, has? 
taken from this side of the Atlantic but one speci-l 
men, and that is Mr. Lincoln's Gettysburg speech. ' 
Mr. Lincoln was great as a speaker. 

It would not be difficult to add another chapter Proverbs 
to the Book of Proverbs, made of the sentences 
dropped from Mr. Lincoln's lips in the experiences 
of life, such as, "In giving freedom to the slave 
we assure freedom to the free"; and again, "This 
struggle of to-day is for a vast future also." Again, 
"We are making history rapidly"; again, "If 
slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong"; and again, 
"I do not understand that because I do not want 
a negro woman for a slave I must necessarily want 
her for a wife." Many of his argumentative 
illustrations are like ^sop's fables. In his Cooper 
Institute speech he says to the South, "You say 
you will not abide the election of a Republican 
President, you will destroy the Union; and then 
you say the great crime of having destroyed it 
will be upon us. That is cool. A highwayman 
holds a pistol to my ear, and mutters through his 



42 



PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 



Readiness 
for any 
emergency 



teeth, *Stand and deliver, or I shall kill you and 
then you will be a murderer.' " 

We encountered a mind equal to any emergency 
and incapable of surprise. A committee of gen- 
tlemen. Rev. Dr. Patton and Rev. Dr. Demp- 
ster, were appointed by a great abolition and 
war meeting held in Bryan Hall in Chicago to 
wait upon him and urge the emancipation of 
slaves. It was long before the border States 
were ready for such treatment. Mr. Lincoln 
received them cordially, gave them seats, sat down 
in front of them, put one leg over the other, 
hooked the toe around in behind the calf of the 
permanent leg, folded his arms in his lap, and 
said, *'Well, gentlemen, you are turned on." One 
of them said, "Mr. Lincoln, God has sent us here 
to tell you that you must emancipate the slaves." 
Mr. Lincoln tipped his head a little and with a 
twinkle in his eyes said, "Well, that is real queer, 
isn't it.^ I thought I was running this thing. If 
God has anything to say I should think he would 
say it to me, wouldn't he, instead of going off to 
that wicked city to tell you about it.^" 
State papers Mr. Lincoln was great in his state papers. No 
man ever wrote as many state papers in the White 
House as Mr. Lincoln. All the questions were up. 
He was pursued by the most malignant enemies 
determined to rend every sentence and syllable 
for weapons with which to wound the Republic. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 43 

He could not afford to extemporize blunders. 
The brief speeches which were delivered from the 
windows of the White House when he was sere- 
naded were carefully written and read. They are 
in the archives. Let me pull out two or three 
documents from the archives. 

When they had been in office about three weeks 
Secretary Seward came into the Cabinet and said, 
''President Lincoln, I have prepared a circular 
letter which I am going to send to our Ministers 
abroad." Mr. Seward did not know the Rail- 
Splitter. He had really not had fair opportunity to 
know him. Seward was widely educated in public 
matters. He had been Governor and Senator of 
the Empire State. His speeches were the classics 
of the Empire State. You will search widely and 
carefully before you find a greater speech than his 
oration on Dan O'Connell. Mr. Lincoln chose 
him on account of his wide experience in public 
matters to manage the difficult and delicate matters 
of diplomacy. But Mr. Lincoln took the breath 
out of him, saying, ''Secretary Seward, I will see Corrected 
the letter, if you please." Mr. Seward was sur- Seward's 
prised, but he was a gentleman. He knew that 
Mr. Lincoln was responsible for the policy and 
ought to see the letter, and he handed it to him. 
I have carefully compared the letter handed by 
Mr. Lincoln to Mr. Seward with the one handed 
by Mr. Seward to Mr. Lincoln. "Scratch out 



writings 



44 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

that," "Don't say that," ^'Change that," *Tut in 
that," all the way from top to bottom. As you go 
down through the letter it rises in dignity and 
power till it is more than a hundred per cent 
greater than it was when it came from the hand 
of Secretary Seward. All the claws were taken 
out of it. There was nothing left in it to scratch 
the British lion, and the British lion was itching 
all over to be scratched. Lord Russell was look- 
ing everywhere for causes for war. But he could 
not find them in this letter. He did find in this 
letter a man, six feet four inches tall, standing 
straight up on his two feet, with his two hands 
open by his two sides, looking straight out of his 
two eyes into the two eyes of the British lion, and 
he felt that that man could in the sixteen-millionth 
part of a second shut up those two hands and 
knock shut those two eyes. But there were no 
threats. It was a plain, candid statement, such 
as one honest man would make to another honest 
man. Secretary Seward took the letter and read 
it carefully. Then he turned round and looked at 
the Rail-Splitter. Then he turned back and re- 
read the letter with care. Then he turned round 
and looked again at the Rail-Splitter. Then he 
said, "President Lincoln, this is a very great state 
paper." I say it took a very great man to say that 
under the conditions; for most of us expected Mr. 
Seward to be President instead of Mr. Lincoln. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 45 

Even in the difficult and delicate business of 
diplomacy the Rail-Splitter from the Sangamon 
Bottom was the teacher of the Sage of Auburn. 

I will take another state paper, the second inaugural 
inaugural address. I remember just where I stood ^^^^^^^ 
when I first read it — on the steps of the old First 
Methodist Episcopal Church on the corner of 
Clark and Washington Streets, Chicago, Illinois, 
that city of patriots. I read through that short 
and most wonderful paper with a sense of awe, 
as if standing in the presence of God's prophet. 
There is less of human nature in it than in any 
other document I ever read outside the Book of 
God. Though the rebellion was galloping to its 
grave, Mr. Lincoln simply says, "With high hope 
for the future, no prediction in regard to it is 
ventured." This was as modest as Grant's 
promises about Vicksburg, the first dispatch being 
sent from inside the walls of Vicksburg. Lincoln's 
first inaugural was conciliatory toward the South, 
the second was charitable and apologetic for the 
South. Touching the situation of four years before 
he said, "One party was devoted altogether to 
saving the Union without war, the other seeking 
to destroy it without war. Both parties deprecated 
war; but one of them would make war rather than 
let the nation survive; and the other would accept 
war rather than let it perish." This puts the whole 
case. "Each looked for an easier triumph, and a 



46 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

result less fundamental and astounding. Both read 
the same Bible and pray to the same God; and 
each invokes his aid against the other. It may 
seem strange that men should dare to ask a just 
God's assistance in wringing their bread from the 
sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not, 
that we be not judged." 

A little further down I struck the inspired utter- 
ance, "Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, 
that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass 
away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all 
the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred 
and fiftyy ears of unrequited toil shall be sunk, 
and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash 
shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, 
as was said three thousand years ago, so still it 
\ must be said, *the judgments of the Lord are true 
and righteous altogether.' " 

When I read this I trembled and said, "This 
sounds like Elijah." 

Then I read on: "With malice toward none; with 
charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God 
gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish 
the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; 
to care for him who shall have borne the battle, 
and for his widow and his orphan- — to do all which 
may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace 
among ourselves and with all nations." Marvelous 
revelation! Inspired utterance! No wonder the 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN ¥[ 

French Minister said, "No such document as that 
ever before came to the French Court." 

I will take but one other document, the Proclama- Proclama- 
tion of Emancipation. This reaches the center of £^°^ ^_ 
the struggle. Mr. Lincoln had sworn to maintain tion 
the Constitution and laws. He could not violate 
his oath. When it became necessary to destroy 
slavery to save the Union, then that was his 
constitutional duty. The country came slowly to it. 
The border States must approve such an act. The 
forty thousand soldiers sent by Kentucky into the 
Union army if sent to the Confederate army would 
probably have changed the issue of the war. So 
Lincoln countermanded the premature proclama- 
tions of Fremont and Hunter. The most needless 
and disastrous defeats at Chickamauga and on the 
James in the summer of 1862 did much to prepare 
the country to transfer the colored forces from 
the Southern cause to the Union cause. In this 
distress rebel sympathizers circulated after Chicka- 
mauga that the President was ready to give up 
the strife. The President armed Secretary Seward 
with two letters and hurried him away to New 
York. One letter was addressed to Secretary 
Seward, authorizing him to utter for the President 
these heroic words: 'T expect to maintain this 
contest until successful, or till I die, or am con- 
quered, or my term expires, or Congress or the 
country forsakes me.'* The other letter was sent 



48 



PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 



Opposition 
of the 
Cabinet 



by the hand of Secretary Seward to eighteen of the 
loyal governors, asking for more soldiers. Soon 
appeared, as if spontaneous, from the eighteen 
governors an appeal to Mr. Lincoln, offering troops 
and asking the President to call for eight hundred 
thousand more soldiers. This was Mr. Lincoln's 
almost preternatural parry of the disaster of 
Chickamauga. The disasters brought the country 
and Mr. Lincoln up to the emancipation policy. 

On the 22d of July, 1862, Mr. Lincoln, as he 
says himself, "without consultation with or knowl- 
edge of the Cabinet," presented the first draft of 
the Proclamation of Emancipation. Secretary 
Blair, representing Missouri and the border, fa- 
vored it. Secretary Chase, representing the Aboli- 
tion wing, opposed it. Secretary Seward opposed 
it, saying, *Tt will kill the cotton crop for sixty 
years, and foreign nations will intervene, and also 
the time is too dark. It looks like America 
stretching out her hands to Ethiopia instead of 
Ethiopia stretching out her hands to America.'* 
Mr. Lincoln withdrew the paper and waited. 

Antietam came. Antietam was our first great 
when issued victory. Mr. Liucoln came into the Cabinet with 
a paper in his hand and said, "Gentlemen, I want 
your attention." The Secretaries gathered about 
the great table. Mr. Lincoln laid the paper down 
on the table, reached out for the Bible, drew it to 
himself, opened it, and deliberately read a chapter. 



Conditions 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 49 

After this act of official worship, of official recog- 
nition of God, he said, *' Gentlemen, I do not want 
your advice as to whether I shall issue this docu- 
ment or not. For that I have determined myself. 
If you have suggestions concerning minor points 
when you have heard it read, I will hear them." 
Then he added in a lower tone of voice, "I have 
not told anyone. I promised myself, I told the 
Lord." Secretary Seward said, "What did I hear 
you say.^" Mr. Lincoln faced full upon the Sec- 
retary and said, "Secretary Seward, I told the 
Lord that if he would drive the rebels out of 
Maryland I would emancipate the slaves, and I 
will do it." And he did. 

I know of but four other papers in all literature Other 
to be classed with this. They are, first, the Magna ^^s**^"^ 

(iociiiii6iits 

Charta, extorted from King John; second, the 
Declaration of Independence, from the pen of ^' 
Thomas Jefferson; third, the ukase of Alexander II 
of Russia giving freedom and land to the serfs; 
and, fourth, the ukase of Nicholas II of Russia 
giving religious liberty to the subjects of his vast 
empire. These are the milestones marking the 
onward and upward march of mankind. This one 
bearing the name of Lincoln will never grow dim 
beneath the trampling feet of the ages. For when 
the great war has shriveled to a speck behind the 
centuries, when the Republic has crumbled from 
her niche in the halls of history, and when the 



50 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

language of the Anglo-Saxon shall be mumbled 
only by the tongue of the stranger, even then 
this great document bearing the name of Lincoln 
will make radiant this martyr age of the Re- 
public. 

Political Mr. Lincoln was great in his political sagacity. 

sagacity In the early forties he said, **We shall not see the 
peaceable extinction of slavery. The party that 
wanted the peaceable extinction of slavery has 
gotten itself peaceably extinguished.'* August 15, 
1855, writing to Robertson, of Kentucky, on the 
peaceful extinction of slavery, he said, "There is 
no peaceful extinction of slavery in prospect for 
us. Once, when we were the political slaves of 
King George, we called the maxim 'that all men 
are created equal' *a self-evident truth'; but now 
when we have grown fat and become greedy to 
be masters^ we call the same maxim 'a self-evident 
lie.' The spirit that desired the peaceful extinction 
of slavery has itself become extinct. The condition 
of a negro slave in America is as fixed as that of 
the lost soul of the finally impenitent. The Auto- 
crat of all the Russias will proclaim his subjects 
free republicans sooner than will our American 
masters voluntarily give up their slaves." It is 
curious to note that on March 3, 1861, the day 
before Mr. Lincoln's first inauguration, the Auto- 
crat of all the Russias emancipated his serfs. Six 
weeks later the American masters inaugurated the 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 51 

bloodiest war of modern times to perpetuate 
slavery. 

In 1850 he said, "The time will come when we 
must all be Democrats or Abolitionists. When 
that time comes my mind is made up where I will 
stand. The slavery question cannot be com- 
promised." 

He said, "The nation cannot long exist half- 
slave and half-free.*' This "House Divided Against 
Itself" speech aroused the North and the nation 
to a solemn and heroic consideration of the gravity 
of the situation. He said, "Either the opponents 
of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, or 
its adherents will push it forward till it shall be- 
come alike lawful in all the States, old as well as 
new, North as well as South." "The fight must 
go on. The cause of civil liberty must not be 
surrendered at one or even one hundred defeats. 
It is the great and durable question of the age." 
"Never forget that we have before us this whole 
matter of the right and wrong of slavery in this 
Union." Again, "He who would be no slave must 
consent to have no slave. Those who deny free- 
dom to others deserve it not for themselves, and 
under a just God cannot long retain it." 

No man more fully than Mr. Lincoln understood Understood 
the issue in the public mind and on the field of t^fP^^Uc 

^ . mmd 

battle. He could not more wisely have tempered 
his blow for the execution of this great enemy of 



52 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

mankind. His accurate knowledge of the state of 
public opinion in the North, in the army, and in 
the border States enabled him to push forward as 
rapidly as the people would follow him. There 
was most consummate statesmanship in the pro- 
posal to compensate for the slaves any State 
returning to its allegiance. It comforted the 
border and conservatives in the North. The 
wisdom of his ninety days' grace for return to 
loyalty before the final consummation of emancipa- 
tion did not appear to all at first. Wendell Phillips 
denounced it as a blunder to attempt to touch off 
a shell with a fuse three months long. He said, 
*'Some one will certainly cut it or extinguish it." 
But the ninety days slid by. The border States 
straightened up. The conservatives and timid 
recovered from alarm. Mr. Lincoln quietly watched 
the fuse, and at the appointed hour, January 1, 
1863, the shell exploded. It blew three millions 
of slaves out of their chains, lifted them out of 
the resources of the Confederacy, and added them 
to the resources and forces of the government. 

Putting the freedmen into the army reconciled 
many who had opposed their emancipation. They 
lessened the draft. Many preferred that the 
colored man should stand up as target for rebel 
marksmen than stand up for that purpose them- 
selves. Mr. Lincoln's sagacity eased the country 
through the close places. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 53 

In the great joint debate with Douglas, in 1858, Conditions 
for a seat in the United States Senate, they ar- ^° ^^^^e 

7 1 111 1 1 11 with Douglas 

ranged that one snoiiid speak an hour, the other 
an hour and a half; then the first have half an 
hour to reply. The man who spoke first and last 
had all the advantage. It was agreed to alternate 
this advantage. When they got down into southern 
Illinois Mr. Lincoln allowed Douglas to speak 
first and last every night. Lincoln's friends ob- 
jected, saying, "It is not fair." Mr. Lincoln said, 
"Gentlemen, you do not understand the situation. 
Don't you know that this is Egypt ? All these are 
Mr. Douglas's friends. If he speaks last they will 
stay to hear him and I will get a chance at them 
and spoil them for him." There was nothing 
shabby about that. 

They agreed to ask and answer questions. Mr. The question 
Lincoln wanted to ask Dousjlas, "To which do ^^ "squatter 

11 • 1 TA 1 n sovereignty" 

you adhere, squatter sovereignty or the Dred bcott 
decision.^" Squatter sovereignty was Douglas's 
pet doctrine, and by it he meant that the people 
on the soil in the Territories should determine 
whether they should be free or slave. The Dred 
Scott decision affirmed that the Constitution pro- 
tected slavery in the Territories. This is the 
famous Freeport question, which many thought cost 
Mr. Lincoln his seat in the Senate. Lincoln's 
friends said, "Don't ask him that. If you do he 
will stick to squatter sovereignty and turn his back 



54 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

on the Dred Scott decision as an abstraction and 
make votes." Mr. Lincoln swept every field in 
the debate. Men would say, *'You will certainly 
carry the State." He said, "Not now; we have 
Illinois out at school in '58, we will graduate her 
in '60." "If Mr. Douglas turns his back on the 
Dred Scott decision he will never be President." 
The committee that went around with him said, 
"What is that to you.? You are trying to go to 
the Senate." He said, "O, no, no! Gentlemen, I 
am hunting for bigger game than that: '60 is 
worth a great many of '58. The White House 
is worth many of the Senate." He asked Mr. 
Douglas the question. Douglas adhered to squatter 
sovereignty and turned his back on the Dred Scott 
decision. Joseph Medill, long editor of the Chicago 
Tribune and a member of the committee that 
accompanied Lincoln over the State, was mad and 
said, "Mr. Lincoln, you can't expect us to follow 
you around over the State and you not pay any 
attention to what we advise, but rather persist in 
asking questions that will certainly defeat you." 
Mr. Lincoln said, "Joseph, don't get mad. I am 
trying to save the Union by preventing Douglas 
from being President. He has answered the ques- 
tion, turning his back upon the Dred Scott deci- 
sion, and he will not be President." Mr. Lincoln 
pinned Douglas down on the public platform and 
made him admit that a "thing might riglitly he 



ABRAHA:M LINCOLN 55 

driven from a place where it had a rigid to stay.''* 
But this was not the worst of it. The Charleston 
convention came. Mr. Douglas went to that con- 
vention as the pet of the great Democratic Party 
of the North, with that party at his heels, anxious 
to nominate him. The South adhered to the two- 
thirds rule, a rule that enabled the minority of 
the South to dictate the candidates. With one 
more than one third they could prevent a nomina- 
tion. This is what made Virginia the mother of 
Presidents. They defeated the nomination of Mr. 
Douglas, sapng, "He turned his back on the Dred 
Scott decision." They split the great Democratic 
Party in twain and sent Mr. Lincoln to the White 
House by a minority vote. Political sagacity has 
seldom done as bright a thing as this question of 
Mr. Lincoln to Mr. Douglas. 

His political sagacity gave him a just measure Measuring 
of the situation. His estimate of the South was the situation 
vindicated by events. He said, "They are Amer- 
ican citizens. South and North, with essentially 
the same characteristics and powers. Man for man 
the soldiers from the South will be a match for 
the soldiers from the North, and vice versa." In 
his Cincinnati speech he said to the Kentuckians 
present, "If we elect a President, will you fight .^ 
You are good fighters. So are we, about equal. 
If you outnumber us, you can win; if we out- 
number you, we shall win. You had better 



56 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

not undertake that business. You will have 
trouble." 
Caution After Bull Run everybody had a new cure and 

urged it. One wanted him to "burn Baltimore," 
another "hang traitors," another "destroy Charles- 
ton," another "liberate and arm the slaves." The 
New York Times asked for the resignation of the 
Cabinet and warned Lincoln that he might be 
superseded. But Lincoln's sense and caution saved 
the nation. He could not be enticed into mere 
showy performance. After the Emancipation 
Proclamation, and after a Missouri convention had 
adopted a Free Constitution and Maryland had 
elected a Legislature having a considerable ma- 
jority pledged to emancipation, still Mr. Lincoln's 
wise prudence counseled the utmost caution. He 
said to Governor Morgan, of New York, "We are 
like whalers who have been long on a chase. We 
have at last got the harpoon into the monster, but 
we must now look how we steer, or with one flop 
of his tail he may send us all into eternity." 
Sensing His marvclous knowledge of details, his exact 

public ^j^(j ready memory, his systematic investigations 

into every department of public interest, his wise 
generalizations, made him the best of authority 
always on the public pulse. A dictator of a des- 
potism can say what he thinks ought to be his 
policy and do it. But the president of a republic 
must determine the best that the people will accept. 



opinion 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 57 

He is not prow, but rudder. Public opinion is a 
resultant. It may not follow the direction of any 
one force. It is a combination of forces. A presi- 
dent must check the radicals and spur up the 
conservatives, rein in the enthusiasts and turn down 
the cranks, thus finding a middle line that can be 
maintained. He must find a resultant that is a 
combination of all the forces. In all this Mr. 
Lincoln has had no superior, perhaps no peer. 

This rare intuition, the birthright of great leaders, This 
that becomes conscious of the drift of public P^^^^pce 

. . . gave n im 

opinion as migratory birds scent the points of the self-poise 
compass, this intuition that accurately measures 
what the people will endure, understand, and 
follow — this practical prescience enabled Mr. Lin- 
coln to hold the nation till it voted him men and 
money and filled the ranks with fighters, till it 
faced taxation and maintained millions of men in 
the field and poured billions of capital into the 
treasury, till it weighed him against all opposers 
and took him into supreme confidence, and on his 
advice ordained the Thirteenth Amendment, mak- 
ing slavery under the flag forever impossible. 
This practical wisdom made him great in his 
statesmanship and in his political sagacity. 

This foresight of events kept him quiet in the 
storm. When other public men would seem half 
frantic over some great calamity Mr. Lincoln was 
as quiet as if he were only a routine clerk. The 



58 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

night after Bull Run, when the country received 
its first awakening blow and public men were 
distressed almost beyond endurance, Mr. Lincoln 
stayed in his office all night, receiving the sad 
news in its painful details, and in the intervals he 
wrote out a plan for future operations, immediate 
and remote, that the next four years vindicated. 
In August, 1864, events seemed to desert the 
Union cause. Much Confederate money was spent 
in modifying Northern views. The cry of dis- 
satisfaction was heard on every side. It was 
nothing that Greeley and Raymond, two great 
editors, thought everything lost and insisted on a 
commission to secure suitable terms with the Con- 
federacy to save the Union. It was nothing that 
certain party organs denounced Mr. Lincoln and 
demanded a change; but on August 22 so loyal 
and astute a politician as Thurlow Weed, Lincoln's 
personal friend, wrote him that his election was 
impossible, that no one from any State authorized 
the slightest hope of success. Under this heavy 
pressure Mr. Lincoln wrote a letter, saying what 
he would do when defeated — "He would consult 
with his successor and do all possible to save the 
Union before March 4, for no one could save it 
after that." This was sealed and indorsed on the 
back by each member of the Cabinet. No one 
but Lincoln knew its contents. One week later 
Vallandigham's Chicago convention nominated 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 69 

McClellan and Pendleton, and committed the 
Democratic Party to denouncing the war as a 
failure. This lifted the load from this great tired 
soul, and gave him a new impulse of life and hope 
never again to be depressed. The same issues of 
the dailies published the fall of Atlanta and the 
platform denouncing the war as a failure. Just 
as a scientific pamphlet proving that a steamer ^^ 
could never cross the Atlantic was brought first to 
America in a steamboat — the truth and the false- 
hood thus coming together — so these statements 
from Atlanta and from Chicago came together, 
and the people accepted the Atlanta fact rather 
than the Chicago theory. 

Mr. Lincoln was great as a military leader. Great in 
General Sherman repeatedly expressed the admira- ^^qJ^'^^ 
tion and surprise with which he read Mr. Lincoln's 
correspondence with his generals and his opinion 
of the remarkable correctness of his military views. 
Mr. Lincoln's room was filled with maps and 
charts. He marked these to see where every 
soldier and gun could be found. No general's 
headquarters could furnish more or better informa- 
tion. The extreme caution of his three great 
generals in the three great military divisions in 
the first months and years of the war made this 
necessary: McClellan in the East, Buell in the 
center, Halleck in Missouri — each great in his way, 
but each lacking the thing that does it. Lincoln saw 



60 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

the country tiring out, the debt multiplying, foreign 
complications thickening, the armies wasting, 
and nothing being done. He urged these several 
oflBcers to do something. He would give detailed 
statements of the strength of each division of the 
Union army and very close information concerning 
the strength of the Confederate army, exact maps 
of the routes, every particular, and beseech his 
generals to fight. He could not order them. They 
had to decide and have their own hearts in it, 
so each urgent statement was closed with the 
words, "This is not an order." Events and the 
rebel archives have demonstrated in every instance 
he was right and these generals wrong. It is 
impossible for an unbiased mind to read carefully 
the details of his great work in this field, and not 
wonder at his ability and patience. He could not 
remove these men even when they failed, for he 
had nobody to put in their places. He had to 
create generals, and this took experience and many 
battles. As it takes a peck of eyes to make an 
oculist, so it takes many battles and thousands of 
precious lives to make a general. 
Superior to Ouce he Said, "If McClellan is not going to use 
his generals j^jg army I would like to borrow it." After Grant 
came he unloaded much of this care. Once when 
he was asked what Grant was doing he modestly 
replied, "I don't know; when Mac was here I used 
to go up the ladder and look into the hole to see 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 61 

what he was doing, but this new man has gone 
into the hole and pulled the ladder in after him." 
General Grant's special engineer. General W. F. 
Smith, the man who gave Grant all the particulars 
of the field when he arrived at Chattanooga and 
presented the plan of operations which Grant 
approved, said, "At the close of the war Mr. 
Lincoln was the superior of all his generals in his 
comprehension of the effect of the strategic move- 
ments and the proper method of following up 
victories to their legitimate conclusion." These 
authoritative opinions give painful significance to 
Mr. Lincoln's answer when asked if at any time 
the war might have been sooner terminated by 
better management: "Yes, at Malvern Hill, where 
McClellan failed to command an immediate ad- 
vance upon Richmond; at Chancellorsville, when 
Hooker failed to reinforce Sedgwick; and at 
Gettysburg, when Meade failed to attack Lee in 
his retreat at the bend of the Potomac." 

General Grant, when he had completed a tour 
of the world, was asked if he had seen any great 
men, and answered, "Yes, I saw quite a number 
of great men; I saw four very great men — Glad- 
stone, Bismarck, Gambetta, and Prince Li, of 
China." Then he added, "But Mr. Lincoln im- 
pressed me as the greatest intellectual force I have 
ever encountered." 

Mr. Lincoln was great in that he went to Wash- 



62 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

ington to be the President. Washington's people 
did not fully understand this at once. There had 

Great in his been two classes in Washington — one that blustered 

self-reliance ^^^ buUdozed, the Other that whined and sub- 
mitted. Mr. Lincoln belonged to neither, so they 
did not know where to classify him. He was 
quiet, calm, attentive, familiar, gentle, slow. He 
was in the midst of the greatest difficulties, where 
a single blunder might be fatal. Old landmarks 
were broken down, old precedents were useless; 
new paths had to be beaten, new difficulties over- 
come, new forces controlled, new races recognized, 
and new responsibilities assumed. Every hour 
was a new problem, and every decision involved 
unmeasured consequences. He seemed to go 
slow. 

Superior to When they had been in office four weeks Mr. 

his Cabinet Scward wrotc to Mr. Lincoln a peculiar letter, 
saying, "President Lincoln, we have been in office 
four weeks and have done nothing. Some one 
must fix a policy, and you, Mr. President, must 
see that it is carried out, and it must not be dis- 
cussed too much in the Cabinet, either." This 
meant that 7, Secretary Seward, will fix the policy, 
and you, Mr. Figurehead, must see that it is car- 
ried out. Mr. Lincoln wrote a sweet love-letter 
to Secretary Seward : ^'Secretary Seward, we have" 
— done this, and that, and that, and that (enough 
to occupy the government twenty years in time of 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 63 

peace); "that will do for one month. Now, Sec- 
retary Seward, we will have a policy, and I will 
fix that policy, and I have a right to the opinions 
of my Cabinet." Mr. Seward took this letter and 
the one a week before about his Ministers, and 
showed these two letters to a friend of mine in his 
office, and said, "The Republican Party in Chicago 
made no mistake about the man they put at the 
front." 

Lincoln could settle the quarrels in his Cabinet. 
Sometimes a quarrel in the Cabinet was more 
disastrous than a defeat on the field. Once in the 
proud old Roman days Csesar and Pompey quar- 
reled. The Roman Senate put on mourning, 
saying, "Two such men cannot quarrel without 
danger to the republic." 

Blair criticised Halleck. Halleck was General; 
Halleck demanded his removal from the Cabinet. 
It involved other members of the Cabinet. Mr. 
Lincoln called his Cabinet together (he did not 
hold many Cabinet meetings; he ruled by his 
Secretaries), and said to them, *T must myself 
judge when your services shall cease; I require 
that no one of you here or elsewhere, now or 
hereafter, among yourselves or among others, shall 
make any mention of this matter." This surpasses 
any other announcement on record. Andrew 
Jackson was never more peremptory. George 
Washington was never more dignified. The man 



64 



PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 



Independent 
in action 



Conquered 
an opposing 
Congress 



from the Sangamon Bottom towers above his 
Cabinet as above ordinary men. 

Certain questions were sent out to ninety-two 
generals, asking their opinion of the wisdom of 
arming the negroes. Eighty-nine answered pos- 
itively against it. The result of the inquiry was 
reported to Mr. Lincoln, and the next day he 
issued the order for arming the negroes. Fort 
Wagner and all the field where the colored troops 
were engaged justified the wisdom of his decision. 

There is no more sublime and heroic exhibition 
of the inflexibility of his spinal column than is seen 
in his contest with Congress. Congress had be- 
fore it in July, 1864, a reconstruction plan, which 
Mr. Lincoln assured them was not in the scope of 
their power to enact but belonged to another de- 
partment of the government. He so advised lead- 
ing members, but they went ahead and passed 
the bill and adjourned. Mr. Lincoln went down 
from the White House to the Capitol and into the 
Vice-President's room back of the Vice-President's 
chair to receive and consider the bills. The clerk 
of the Senate brought them in. His private secre- 
tary passed them on the table before him. The 
leading senators crowded into the room to see 
what he would do with reconstruction. He signed 
the bills one after another, till he came to the 
Reconstruction Bill. Pointing over his shoulder 
with his thumb to the great senators, he said to 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 65 

his private secretary, "I know that they can do 
much harm. Nevertheless I must keep some sense 
of right within myself," and withdrew the bill 
without signing it. That was the real Lincoln. 
That was the man who towered above every man 
about him, towered above every personal ambition, 
and, like a martyr going to the stake, parted with 
his friends and walked forth alone in the storms 
and perils of that dark night in order that he might 
walk with God. Many of the great leaders at- 
tacked him fiercely in the press and on the platform. 
But the people would tolerate none of this abuse. 
They said, "Old Abe suits us; we believe he knows, 
and we know he is honest." When their time to 
speak came they ended all controversies. When 
the House got a chance it went over to Mr. Lin- 
coln's program and passed the Thirteenth Amend- 
ment. There he stands on the mountain alone, 
like Elijah with his foot on the heaving bosom of 
the earthquake calmly listening to the still, small 
voice. He is no hothouse plant to be killed with 
the first breath of autumn. To borrow some one's 
figure, he is rather the sturdy old oak grown on a 
spur of the mountain, against whose tough sides 
the wild boar hath whetted his tusks, in whose 
leafy top is the lightning's fiery path, and down 
whose rugged trunk are the footprints of the 
thunderbolt, that in the teeth of the tempest bows 
its head to the earth, bending like a bow, and 



1/ 



66 



PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 



Maintained 

his 

prerogatives 



Could stand 
alone 



springing back again like the arrow. That is Mr. 
Lincoln. 

Secretary Seward went down to Fortress Monroe 
to talk with some gentlemen about the estate of 
the dying Confederacy. When he went out Mr. 
Lincoln said, "Secretary Seward, observe and 
report. Conclude nothing. I will attend to that.'* 

General Grant had Lee by the neck at Ap- 
pomattox. Ten days must end it. Lincoln 
telegraphed to Grant, *'Make no treaties with 
Lee; that belongs to another department of the 
government." 

Lincoln could stand alone. The dark days of 
the war were from the 2d day of January, 1863, 
when Sherman with his Western fighters had been 
repulsed on the banks of the Yazoo, to the 4th 
day of July of the same year, when Grant marched 
into Vicksburg. Everything seemed going wrong. 
Great States were going wrong at the polls. The 
Eastern army was trying new commanders with 
bad results. Ohio and Pennsylvania were trem- 
bling in terror before the advance of rebel armies. 
Shoddy contractors were sucking out the blood of 
the prostrate Republic. The taxes were increasing. 
The draft was pressing everywhere. The nation's 
credit was sinking. Gold was rising to nearly 
three hundred. Foreign nations were threatening 
intervention. The pressure was almost infinite. 
Everybody criticised General Grant's plan of the 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 6T 

Vicksburg campaign. Every citizen that had access 
to the White House urged Grant's removal. Even 
E. B. Washburn, Grant's old and intimate friend, 
wrote advising Grant's removal. The Committee 
of Fifteen on the Conduct of the War, appointed 
by Congress, waited upon Mr. Lincoln and almost 
demanded his removal. Mr. Lincoln answered 
them, saying, "Gentlemen, I have never seen this 
chap yet, but he is the only man that is doing 
what I sent him out to do. I think I will stick to 
him a while longer. You see if I don't." 

One man, representing great interests about 
Vicksburg, told Mr. Lincoln that Grant was 
drunk. Mr. Lincoln asked, *'Can you tell me 
where he got his liquor .'^'^ The man said, *'No, 
but a general can get liquor if he wants to." ^ 
Lincoln said, "I must know the particular sutler 
from whom he gets his whisky; I want some of 
that whisky for my other generals." 

No man ever stouted it out against Lincoln His will was 
when he had reached a decision. Secretary Stanton i^esistibie 
tried it once. Mr. Lincoln issued an order that 
certain recruits should be accredited to Pennsyl- 
vania. Secretary Stanton said, "It cannot be 
done." Mr. Lincoln explained the order in detail. 
Stanton said, "It is not a proper order and cannot 
be executed." Mr. Lincoln said, "Secretary Stan- 
ton, you will execute the order." Stanton became 
heated and said, "It is a foolish order. I will 



commoner 



68 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

not execute it." Mr. Lincoln lowered his voice a 
little, tipped forward a little, settled together a 
little, and looking into the Secretary's eyes as if 
he were trying to see what was on the front side 
of the back part of his skull, said, ''Secretary 
Stanton, the order will be executed" — did not say 
Stanton would do it. Stanton thought he heard 
something come in contact with the earth's surface, 
and said, "I will do it." Stanton was an iron 
man, but he dropped into the hands of a man of 
chilled steel, and of course he doubled up. 
The great Mr. Liucolu was the great commoner. He 

incarnated the ideal republic. He demonstrated 
and illustrated the integrity and patriotism and 
power of the common people. Talk as we may 
about the cities, covet as we often do the delights 
of luxury, and enjoy as we can the pleasing at- 
tentions of wealth and position, nevertheless the j 
great body of the common people 's the reservoir 
whence come not only the springs of government, 
the authority for legislation, but also the brain and 
brawn for a rugged society and the chieftains for 
perilous times. When the conspiracy culminated 
the common soldiers of the United States remained 
loyal in spite of the utmost efforts of their oflScers. 
Most of the States that seceded did so without the 
consent of the common people or in spite of their 
vote against secession. 

Great minorities who loved the old Union were 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 69 

driven and carried with the tide into secession. 
Sometimes this love was given up in the long Loyalty of 
strife. Sometimes it survived all suffering. When *^^ common 
the Union army entered Knoxville, Tennessee, the 
common people seized on the soldiers, officers and 
privates alike, and took them to their homes to 
feed and feast them. When the old flag was 
unfurled the people literally covered it with kisses. 
Howard's soldiers had worn out their shoes and 
were marching barefooted over the frozen ground. 
The people met them, sat down in the road, took 
off their own shoes, and put them on the feet of 
the soldiers. The common people only needed to 
be let alone. The distemper was chiefly among 
the politicians. The common people were im- 
munes. In the North the people voted right. 
They understood the issues of the war and voted 
for what they wanted, and enlisted to make their 
ballots respected. A bullet in a ballot gave it 
weight. They did not lack intelligence. The 
Eighth Massachusetts Regiment, under Butler, at 
Annapolis found the ruins of a locomotive. Private 
Homans recognized it as out of "our shop.'* 
Soon the men put it together and it was pulling 
the soldiers toward Washington, where they were 
so much needed. The average American regiment 
had brains enough to man the average Congress. 

No man esteemed the common soldier more 
highly than did Mr. Lincoln. He said, "Say what 



the common 
people 



70 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

you will, after all the most is due to the soldier 
who takes his life in his hands and goes to fight 
the battles of his country." 
He loved Standing before the White House, addressing a 

regiment of volunteers, he said, *'I am a living 
witness that any one of your children may look 
to come here into the White House as my father's 
child has." Mr. Lincoln embodied more than did 
any other man the affections and purposes and 
powers of the common people. He was essentially 
democratic in his sympathies. He loved the com- 
mon people and loved to be with them and to 
serve them. One morning, late in his administra- 
tion, he told a dream he had just had. He was in 
some great assembly. The people made a lane to 
let him pass. Some one said as he passed, "He 
is a common-looking fellow, isn't he.^" Lincoln 
replied in his dream, "Friend, • the Lord loves 
common-looking people; that is why he made so 
many of them." He came up among us. He was 
one of us. His birth, his education, his habits, 
his motives, his feelings, and his ambitions were 
all our own. Had he been born among hereditary 
aristocrats, he would not have been our President. 
But born in the cabin, and reared in the field and 
in the forest, he became the great commoner. The 
classics of the schools might have polished him, 
but they would have separated him from us. 
Trained in the common school of adversity, his 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 71 

calloused palm never slipped from the poor man's 
hand. A child of the people, he was as accessible 
in the White House as he had been in the cabin. 
The griefs of the poor African were as sacred to 
him as the claims of the opulent white man. 
Measuring all men by their humanity, he found 
them essentially equal. Hence his marvelous pa- 
tience, under the pressure upon him of the poorest 
people. He never had in the White House an 
equal in this. Seeing in God a common Father, 
he saw in every man a brother. Making the 
government the protector of every man in virtue of 
his humanity, and the creature of the majority in 
virtue of their numbers, he realized to the world 
in himself the ideal republic. 

On one occasion, in company with General Loved by 
Grant, Mr. Lincoln reviewed about thirty thousand ^^f ^o^^^^^ 

111 soldiers 

colored troops. As soon as the colored soldiers 
realized that that was Mr. Lincoln riding by the 
side of General Grant, there was no restraining 
them. They broke ranks and rushed about him. 
They kissed his hands, his feet, his horse's tail, 
anything they could touch. Mr. Lincoln dropped 
his bridle reins on his horse's rieck and took off 
his hat. With the tears streaming down his face, 
he rejoiced in their freedom. By his side rode the 
great soldier, face to the front, as unmoved exter- 
nally as a sphinx. Lincoln felt the heart-beat of 
the common people. 



72 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

Entrance His entrance into Richmond a few hours after 

*"*** Jeff Davis left it was in keeping with his char- 

acter. You remember how quietly he entered 
Washington, with only one attendant. In similar 
manner he now enters Richmond. The boat on 
which General Grant sent him up the James ran 
aground, and he proceeded in a twelve-oared 
barge to a landing one block from Libby Prison. 
No guard, no carriage, no conveyance, awaited him. 
As he went down the plank to the dock he was 
recognized by the colored people who swarmed 
around him. The officer of the ten marines who 
accompanied him landed first to clear a little 
space for the President. He looked back and 
discovered Mr. Lincoln on the gangplank. An old 
colored man was down on the plank with his arms 
around Mr. Lincoln's feet, and looking up into 
Mr. Lincoln's face he was praying, "Lor', bress 
Massa Linkum! Lor', bress Massa Linkum! 
Massa Linkum, like Jesus, walks the skies, no 
man sees Massa Linkum, but here he is. Lor', 
bress Massa Linkum!" Mr. Lincoln had his hat 
off. His tears were dropping down upon the old 
freedman's upturned face, so grateful was he 
that God had allowed him to bless these poor 
people. 

The ten marines formed about him, and on foot, 
surrounded by an ever-increasing multitude of ne- 
groes and poor whites, he made his way for a 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 73 

mile and a quarter to the headquarters, out of 
which Davis had so recently fled. 

Never in the history of the world did the con- 
queror enter the subjugated capital of his enemies 
in so simple and humble and appropriate a manner. 
The poor whom he served made the walls of the 
neighboring prison ring with their glad acclama- 
tions. The negroes never expected to see him. 
But here he was in their midst, in the streets of 
the conquered capital of their conquered masters. 
They could touch him. They realized that they 
were free. No wonder they went leaping and 
shouting along the street, "Glory to the Lor'! 
Lor', bress Massa Linkum!" 

This was Mr. Lincoln's greatest earthly triumph. 
As the old Norse god, struggling with the fierce 
gods that were enemies of man, would renew his 
strength every time he touched the earth, so Mr. 
Lincoln, in his fierce struggle with the enemies of 
mankind, renewed his strength every time he 
touched the common people. He was the great 
commoner. 

His nomination was the triumph of the common His nomina- 
people. Well do I remember standing in the t^^^bythe 

r r «-' common 

Wigwam in Chicago on the 18th of May, 1860. people 
I stood in the gallery in the front row, just opposite 
the speaker. More than ten thousand people were 
packed in that building. The Republican Party 
was trying to nominate a candidate for the Pres- 



74 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

idency. The delegates to that memorable con- 
vention were in their places. The third ballot was 
being taken. We soon saw that Seward was losing 
and Lincoln was gaining, and minor candidates 
were vanishing. The end of the roll-call was 
reached. No announcement was made. The great 
multitude was silent as a sepulcher. Nothing 
could be heard but the scratching of pencils and 
the clicking and clattering of the copper hoofs of 
the lightning, hastening with the news. It was 
known that Lincoln lacked only one and one half 
votes to secure his nomination. Everybody waited 
in silence. Just down there to the right a little, in 
the body of the house, I saw a man bound up onto 
his feet, waving a newspaper in his hand. In a 
moment the convention to right and left was on 
its feet calling, "Order! Order!" This man 
bounded up onto a settee. It broke under him. 
Two men caught it and held it. He waved his 
paper and called out at the top of his voice. I 
can hear that voice now as distinctly as I did in 
that most momentous moment in the history of 
the Republic. It was Mr. Carter, chairman of the 
Ohio delegation. He called out with that little 
hitch he had in his voice, "Ohio changes four votes 
from Salmon P. Chase to Abraham Lincoln!" 
Away went the convention. We could hear no 
more. The convention was on its feet, yelling 
wildly. Hats, caps, handkerchiefs, umbrellas, para- 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 75 

sols, canes, shawls, everthing that was loose, 
went up into the air. I saw one delegation run 
into the arms of another and fall together on the 
floor, weeping like children. A man up in the 
gallery, within three feet of me, with a gentle 
twitch took off a lady's bonnet and whipped it 
into strings over a brace in the building. Every- 
body was wild. When men had exhausted them- 
selves and checked a little I saw a man, with 
large head, stout neck and shoulders, a picture 
of power. I see him now. He came upon the 
platform and walked toward the speaker. It 
was William M. Evarts, chairman of the New 
York delegation. He said, "Mr. Chairman, we 
came from a great State, with a great candidate 
whom we hoped to see nominated. In the name 
of that great State, and at the request of that great 
candidate, I move that the nomination of Abraham 
Lincoln be made unanimous." Another wild yell, 
and the thing was done. 

His honesty was the key to the popular heart. Honesty 
Some man in the gallery, about thirty feet from 
me, with a shrill voice that could be heard every- 
where, shouted, "Three cheers for Honest Old 
Abe!" Away they went again. I felt that down 
to the end of my toes. That was the battle cry. 
The campaign cry caught the faith of the multi- 
tude, and in the wildest conceivable excitement 
"Honest Old Abe," the Rail-Splitter from the 



76 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

Sangamon Bottom, was started for the White 
House. 

It was not by accident or without grounds that 
the people took up that cry. Everybody, friends 
and foes, knew that it was true, knew that Lincoln 
was honest. Lincoln had been tested every way 
and had never flinched. He was absolutely honest. 
He was all the way through the same. Men remem- 
bered how, when a boy clerk, he had walked seven 
miles after closing the store to return six cents he 
had taken too much by mistake from an old 
woman in the wilderness. Men knew that once 
he was postmaster at New Salem. The office 
was closed while he was postmaster. Years after 
the government agent called upon him in his office 
and said, ''Somewhat against you, that post office 
at New Salem — seventeen dollars and thirty-four 
cents, if you please." Mr. Lincoln opened a 
leather trunk and took from it a cotton cloth, 
unrolled and untied it, saying, "Mr. Officer, here 
is your seventeen dollars and thirty-four cents. I 
never spend anybody else's money." 

Once when running for the Legislature Joshua 
F. Speed handed him two hundred dollars given 
by friends to pay his personal expenses in the 
canvass. After his election Mr. Lincoln handed 
back to Mr. Speed one hundred and ninety-nine 
dollars and twenty-five cents, with the request that 
he return it. He said, "I did not need the money. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 77 

I made the canvass on my own horse. Entertain- 
ment cost me nothing. I spent seventy-five cents 
for a barrel of cider some farm hands insisted I 
should treat them to." Did not the people know 
that he was honest.'^ 

Mr. Lincoln was honest in his profession. Those Honest in his 
who saw his practice at the Bar of Illinois could profession 
not doubt his honesty. He would not take a bad 
case if he knew it. I knew a great elevator case 
in Chicago, three partners at odds. Each had 
secured a great law firm and they were about to 
divide their elevator between the three law firms. 
One said, *T see that Lincoln is in town; let us 
call him and tell him our troubles." Agreed. They 
called him and told him. He asked, "Is that all .^" 
"Yes." "Then tell it over again." He took three 
sticks, wrote the name of each on a stick, with the 
amount he had in the concern. He cut off a 
splinter with the proper amount and put it where 
it belonged at each transaction. "Is that all.^" 
"Yes." "That is yours, and yours, and yours." 
That ended it. That is the real Lincoln. 

He often persuaded a fair-minded client of the 
injustice of his case and induced him to give it 
up. In his first case, in Henry County, he said 
to the magistrate, "I cannot find one case on my 
side. I have found several strong cases exactly 
fitting the other side. I have brought a list of them 
to aid you in making up your decision." The 



78 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

other lawyer said, with a sneer, "He is a great 
lawyer, is he not?" But he was. He never know- 
ingly took the wrong side of a case. Sometimes he 
was deceived. Once he went to the judge and 
said, "Your Honor, I am going to leave this case. 
The man is guilty." The judge said, "You can't 
do it under your oath. It would prejudice his 
case. Stay with it. You need not ask for a ver- 
dict. Simply see that the forms of law are carried 
out." Mr. Lincoln obeyed. At the end the fore- 
man of the jury said, "As I see this evidence, this 
man is guilty, but you know that Mr. Lincoln 
never takes the wrong side." So they cleared the 
scamp. He stated his cases clearly and fairly and 
with such absolute integrity that the Court would 
sometimes stop him and say, "If that is the case, 
^ we will hear the other side." 
Refused He Said to a proposed client once, "Yes, I can 

wrong cases gg^jjj your suit. I Can sct a whole neighborhood 
at loggerheads. I can distress a widowed mother 
and six fatherless children and thereby get for you 
six hundred dollars which rightfully belongs as 
much to them as to you. I shall not take your 
case, but I will give you a little advice for nothing. 
I would advise you to try your hand at making 
six hundred dollars in some honest way." 

I knew a great land case in Chicago — Mr. 
William Jones, one of the few ante-bellum mil- 
lionaires. I happened to know him. Hard-headed, 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 79 

set, he contended for accretions on the north side 
of the city on the lake shore. Five times, under 
one point or another, it went to the Supreme 
Court and was decided against him. He then went 
to Baltimore to retain Reverdy Johnson, at that 
time thought to be the greatest lawyer in the 
nation. Mr. Jones's son, who went with him, 
gave me the incident. Mr. Jones laid his papers 
down on Mr. Johnson's desk and handed him his 
letter from his lawyer. Mr. Johnson tore open the 
letter and said, "Yes, I know Mr. Scammon. He 
is a reputable lawyer." Pushing Mr. Jones's papers 
back, he said, *'Mr. Jones, my retainer is a thou- 
sand dollars." Mr. Jones said, "That is all right, 
Mr. Johnson. I did not come prepared to pay so 
much down, but you shall have your money." 
Mr. Johnson said, "You probably know some one 
in Baltimore who will give you the money; my 
retainer is one thousand dollars." Mr. Jones 
gathered up his papers and walked out. The son 
said, "Father, I would not go back to that old 
fellow. He did not treat you decently. He did not 
offer you a seat." The old man said, "Boy, you talk 
like a baby. I did not come to Baltimore to get 
decent treatment. I can get that at home. I came 
to Baltimore to get that land, and I mean to have 
it." He found a banker, got a check for a thou- 
sand dollars, went back to Mr. Johnson. Mr. 
Johnson took the check, pulled a bankbook out 



80 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

of a pigeonhole in his desk, found the signature of 
that banker, compared the signatures, said, "Mr. 
Jones, it is all right," put the check in the bank- 
book, pushed the bankbook into the pigeonhole, 
reached out for Mr. Jones's papers, saying, "Mr. 
Jones, you can communicate with me through your 
lawyer." Mr. Jones walked out. He had not 
had a seat yet, but he had a lawyer. "Mr. Jones — " 
"Yes." "On the fifteenth day of next August I 
will send you a brief on this case. Mr. Jones — " 
"Yes." "When you get home, go down to Spring- 
field and retain Abe Lincoln, for with Abe Lincoln 
and this case I can beat the Devil." The young 
man went to Springfield to retain Mr. Lincoln. 
He introduced himself. Mr. Lincoln said, "I know 
your father. He is in that big land suit." "Mr. 
Lincoln, we have retained Reverdy Johnson. He 
wants you associated with him. I have come to 
retain you." Mr. Lincoln said, "Mr. Jones, you 
cannot retain me in that case." "Why not, Mr. 
Lincoln .?" "Because I think the other man ought 
to have the land; that is why." "Mr. Lincoln, 
we have some new points. Will you look at them .?" 
"Certainly." I could give you the points, but I 
will not take the time. He examined it and said, 
"The points are good. I will take the case." 
"How much is your retainer.^" "Give me a 
hundred dollars now, then see how much good I 
can do you." That is Lincoln, the real Lincoln. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 81 

Were I a lawyer, were I permitted to belong to 
that great and honorable profession, I would cling, 
I would cling to the memory of Lincoln, knowing 
that one such character would make a profession 
honorable for a thousand years. 

Nobody doubted his honesty. Thousands who Belief in his 
only knew that he was "Honest Old Abe" voted ^^^^^^^^ . 
for him. This made him President. This saved 
the Republic. No other man could have carried 
us through those fearful years. When it was all 
night about us and all dread before us and all sad 
and desolate behind us, when not one ray shone 
upon our cause, when enemies were haughty and 
exultant at the South and fierce and blasphemous 
at the North, when the loyal men here seemed in 
the minority, when the stoutest hearts failed, the 
bravest cheeks paled, when everything else had 
failed us, we looked at this calm, patient man in 
the White House, standing like a rock in the 
storm, and said, *'Mr. Lincoln is honest. We can 
trust him." Thus he held us together, and brought 
us through. This great character was worth to 
us many round billions in gold. It kept up our 
credit. Chase, Secretary of the Treasury, banked 
in all the markets of the world on Mr. Lincoln's 
honesty. The people and the army expected him 
to do exactly what he said. Once Sheridan had 
his hands full in the Shenandoah. Grant was very 
anxious and was about to take a part of his force 



82 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

from Petersburg and go to Sheridan. He finally 
decided not to do it. Lincoln telegraphed Grant, 
"Neither am I willing for you to break your hold 
where you are. Hold on with a bull-dog grip 
and chew and choke as much as possible." He 
wished to send a brave officer with an important 
word for Sheridan. He asked the officer, "Can 
you do it.'^" The officer replied, "I can do any- 
thing you can ask, or I will report to God." 
Magnanimity Mr. Lincoln was a most magnanimous man. 
He defended his personal enemies from every 
charge that was not proven true, and promoted 
them whenever the public service required it. No 
man in the North except Horace Greeley gave 
him as much occasion for offense as Chase. He 
poured forth a stream of abuse on the President. 
He saw and consulted with every disappointed man 
in the service or in the country. He steadily en- 
gendered distrust and belittled the President with 
contemptuous remarks. Every soldier who was 
not promoted to satisfy him, and every citizen in 
the country who failed to get the post office, when 
he came to Washington drifted around into Chase's 
Cave of AduUam. They comforted each other, 
talking about "the old coward," "the old fool," 
"the old gorilla," "Congress ought to impeach 
him," and the like. All this was faithfully repeated 
to Mr. Lincoln. He answered it, saying, "This 
does not make it so, does it?" "Mr. Chase is a 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 83 

good Secretary. The people believe in him and 
take his money. That is what we want, is it not ? 
I think we will keep him at it." He did not care 
what they said about him, provided they served 
the Republic. 

One day a man ran into Mr. Lincoln's office Secretary 
and said, "President Lincoln, do you know where ^^^^^^ 
Chase is.?" "Yes." "Do you know that he has ^™ ' "'' 
gone to that Republican convention in Ohio.?" 
"Yes." "Don't you know that he is going to make 
a speech there .?" "Yes." "Don't you know that 
he wants to be President, and that you ought to 
keep him at home.?" "O, don't worry about 
Chase. He has just as good a right to want to 
be President as any man in America. If the people 
want Chase to be President, then I want him to 
be President." That cannot be beaten in sixty 
centuries. He added, "Don't worry about Chase. 
When I was a boy I worked on a farm. We 
plowed corn and I rode the horse and a neighbor 
boy held the plow. The horse was lazy. I pounded 
him with my heels and the neighbor boy threw 
dirt at him, but he would not go much till one 
day a blue-head lit on his back, close to the roots 
of his tail, where he could not switch him off. 
Then the blue-head put in his work and the horse 
put in his work. The neighbor boy said, *Abe, 
knock off that blue-head.' I said, *No, you don't; 
is not that just what we want.?' If Chase has 



84 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

anything in his head that will make him work for 
the Republic, is not that just what we want ?" 

Mr. Chittenden, the last survivor of the members 
of the Lincoln Cabinet, who went not long ago 
over to the majority, came up to me at the close 
of this lecture when I delivered it once in New 
York city and gave me this item concerning Mr. 
Chase's resignation. Chittenden was Assistant Sec- 
retary of the Treasury under Chase. He said to 
me, "I went over to Mr. Lincoln's office one 
morning and found Mr. Lincoln sitting there with 
his head bowed down, his chin on his chest, evi- 
dently much depressed. He handed me a letter he 
had just read. It was Chase's letter resigning. I 
read the letter and felt overwhelmed, and said, 
*President Lincoln, you must hold Chase to it. 
You cannot afford to divide the party in such a 
time as this. You must hold Chase to it.' Mr. 
Lincoln said, *Mr. Chittenden, Mr. Chase has 
determined the matter and I will hold him to that.' 
After a few moments, without lifting up his head. 
Chase made he Said, 'Mr. Chittenden, Mr. Chase will make a 
good Chief Justice, and I will appoint him.' " 
Mr. Chittenden said to me, "I had long known 
and loved Mr. Lincoln, but when I saw him that 
hour, under the sting of personal insult and under 
the shadow of threatened calamity, put that man 
into the highest place in the nation, for the good 
of the Republic, he went up and up and up into 



Chief Justice 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 85 

an atmosphere of which I never dreamed. He was 
the greatest man I ever saw." 

I say he was the most magnanimous man the 
sun ever shone upon. 

Lincoln, later, when asked about Chase's ap- 
pointment, said, "Chief Justice Chase will have to 
take care of the greenbacks of Secretary Chase." 

Edwin M. Stanton had been in Buchanan's Stanton, 
Cabinet and went out sore. He was full of petu- t*^°"g^ 

nostilc 

lant talk, prophesied that "Jeff Davis would turn promoted 
them all out in thirty days," spoke of "the panic 
of the President," of "the painful imbecility of the 
President." These things were reported to Mr. 
Lincoln. Yet, when Mr. Cameron, early in the 
war, had to be removed from the Cabinet because 
his policy would have been fatal to the border 
States, Mr. Lincoln made Stanton Secretary of 
War in Cameron's place. 

When the factions in the House combined to 
censure Cameron, after his retirement, Mr. Lincoln 
sent a message to the House, explaining that the 
acts complained of were ordered by himself and 
approved by the entire Cabinet in the emergency. 

After the capture of Vicksburg, Mr. Lincoln Giving 
wrote that famous letter to General Grant, in "^^erethe 

credit 

acknowledgment of "the almost inestimable serv- 
ices done for the country." He said, "When you 
turned northward, east of the Big Black, I feared 
it was a mistake. I now wish to make a personal 



86 



PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 



Imperti- 
nence of 
McClellan 



acknowledgment that you were right and I was 
wrong." This is the same spirit of his letter to 
Halleck, that if Meade would attack on equal 
terms, "with all the skill and courage which he, 
his officers, and men possess, the honor will be 
his if he succeeds, and the blame may be mine 
if he fails." The same magnanimity and self- 
reliance breathed in the letter he wrote to General 
Hooker. He writes, 'T have heard, in such a way 
as to believe it, of your recently saying that both 
the army and the government needed a dictator. 
Of course, it was not for this, but in spite of it, 
that I have given you the command. Only those 
generals who gain successes can set up as dictators. 
What I now ask of you is military success, and I 
will risk the dictatorship." His magnanimity is 
without a parallel. 

One can hardly understand how he endured the 
impertinence of McClellan. When the Committee 
on the Conduct of the War was demanding his 
removal Lincoln defended him. McClellan was 
writing to his friends how he "despised the old 
dotard because he deferred to him so much." 
When I read this I felt that I wanted my priv- 
ileges in the gospel enlarged so I could express 
my mind. Once in a perilous time Mr. Lincoln 
went to McClellan's headquarters to consult him. 
McClellan was out attending the wedding of a 
member of his staff. Lincoln waited three hours. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 87 

McClellan came in and went upstairs. Lincoln, 
thinking he had not been told, sent up a servant 
to tell McClellan that he wanted to see him on 
important war matters. The servant came back 
with the beautiful, beautiful statement, "Tell Lin- 
coln that General McClellan has gone to bed." 
Even this Lincoln never commented on. He 
simply told it to his private secretary. I would 
be afraid to tell you what you would have done. 
Lincoln was too great to mind personal insults. 
Mr. Lincoln held Mr. McClellan on his hand. If 
he turned his hand up edgewise McClellan would 
have dropped into oblivion like a bullet. But Lin- 
coln held him. 

Once Lincoln had an appointment with Mc- 
Clellan and two other oflScers. McClellan did not 
come nor pay any attention to the appointment. 
The other officers expressed their minds. Mr. 
Lincoln said, "Well, never mind. I would hold 
McClellan' s horse if he would only do something 
for the country." His magnanimity is without /^ 
known human parallel. It makes us think of One 
who was buffeted and spit upon by those who were 
dependent every moment for existence upon his 
benignity, One who when he was reviled reviled 
not again. 

Now I must give you some telegrams that were 
said to pass between McClellan and Lincoln. I 
do not believe these telegrams. I think they' were 



88 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

invented by the Western army to make fun of the 
Eastern army. I give them simply as a parable to 
illustrate one characteristic in each man. 
,^ McClellan telegraphed, *'Hon. Abraham Lin- 

; coin, President of the United States of America, 

Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy. Sir : 
I have the honor to report that I have captured 
seven cows. What shall I do with them ? George 
B. McClellan, Major General, Commanding in the 
Field." Mr. Lincoln telegraphed back, "George: 
Suck them. Abe." Mr. Lincoln was absolutely 
free from all fuss and feathers. 
A Christian I present Mr. Lincoln as the best specimen of 
Christian man I have ever encountered in public 
life. He was not a member of the visible Church, 
but measured by the substantial tests of member- 
ship in the spiritual Church, by his faith in the 
Book of God, by the constancy with which he 
studied its precepts, by the persistency with which 
he pleaded its promises on behalf of the interests 
intrusted to him, by his gentleness with the helpless 
and dependent, by his kindness toward his ene- 
mies, by his patience under the most persistent 
and malicious misrepresentations, by his reverence 
for the character of God — measured by these sub- 
stantial tests of membership in the spiritual Church, 
I present him as the best specimen of a Christian 
man I have ever encountered in public life. God 
was in all his thoughts. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 89 

I recall a speech he made to me in my early 
manhood, before the war. He said, "Young man, 
American slavery is either right or wrong. If it 
is right, we must be careful how we treat it as 
wrong, for God will deal with us. If it is wrong, 
we must be careful how we treat it as right, for 
God will deal with us. If American slavery is not 
wrong, then nothing is wrong." It is all there. 

He had a side open toward the Infinite. I want His early 
you to take the following statements without y^^°^ ^* ^^ 
reduction, for I have followed them to their sources martyrdom 
and know whereof I affirm. I make this especial 
emphasis because it is an especial case. On the 
11th day of August, 1837,* Mr. Lincoln went out 
from Springfield, Illinois, to Salem, Illinois, to 
attend a camp meeting. He went out in a band 
wagon, with six other lawyers and two doctors. 
On their way out Mr. Lincoln joked about the 
horses and the wagon and the lawyers and the 
doctors and everything. Out there Dr. Peter 
Akers, then in the fullness of his power, whom I 
regard as the greatest Bible preacher that ever 
preached on the continent, preached in the after- 
noon on "The Dominion of Jesus Christ." The 
object of the sermon was to show that the dominion 
of Jesus Christ could not come in America till 
American slavery was wiped out, and that it would 



* This was the day upon which the speaker, Bishop Fowler, was born. 



90 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

be wiped out by the besom of a civil war. For 
three hours the brave Doctor pounded away at 
his argument, giving a graphic description of the 
civil war. In his discourse he said, "I am not a 
prophet, nor the son of a prophet, but a student 
of the prophets. As I read prophecy, American 
slavery, the temporal power of the Pope, and the 
dominion of the Turk in Europe will come to an 
end in some near decade, I think in the sixties." 
This was in the thirties. There were not enough 
Abolitionists outside of Boston to count. All this 
company were proslavery. Most of them were 
from the slave States. It was within sixty miles 
of Alton, where a few weeks before Lovejoy was 
murdered by a proslavery mob. This company 
surged around him in wild excitement, as he de- 
nounced slavery and described the civil war. Com- 
ing to the summit of his argument, as if touched 
by the breath of prophecy, the Doctor called out 
at the top of his voice, "Who can tell us but that 
the man who shall lead us through this strife may 
be standing in this presence.'*'* Mr. Lincoln stood 
down the aisle, about thirty feet away. 

That night, going back to SpringjQeld, Mr. 
Lincoln was silent. After some time one of the 
doctors, a particular friend of Mr. Lincoln, asked, 
"Lincoln, what do you think of that sermon?" 
After some moments of silence Mr. Lincoln an- 
swered, "I never thotight such power cotild be 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 91 

given to mortal man. Those words were from 
beyond the lips of the speaker. The Doctor has 
persuaded me that American slavery will go down 
with the crash of a civil war." Then he was silent 
for a few minutes, and added, "Gentlemen, you 
may be surprised and think it strange, but when 
the Doctor was describing the civil war I dis- 
tinctly saw myself, as in second sight, bearing 
important part in that strife." Some who were 
near him think that he saw himself dying for the 
Republic. Some hints of it appeared at critical 
times. The next morning Mr. Lincoln came late 
into his office. His partner, without looking up, 
said, "Lincoln, you have been wanted." Looking 
up, he saw Lincoln's haggard face and exclaimed, 
"Why, Lincoln! What is the matter with you.^" 
Mr. Lincoln told him about the sermon and said, 
"I am utterly unable to shake myself from the 
conviction that I shall be involved in that tragedy." 
From that hour till the end he never doubted the 
great part he would bear in the overthrow of 
slavery — a side open toward the Infinite. 

The very last day of his life, that terrible Friday At his last 
(he was shot that night at eight o'clock and seven- Cabinet 
teen minutes. Eastern time), in the afternoon, at "^ 

three o'clock, he had a Cabinet meeting. Every 
Secretary was present. General Grant was there. 
He had come up from Appomattox. Lee's army 
was no more, but Sherman was in front of John- 



92 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

ston, the great fighter of the Confederacy, and 
Grant was anxious about Sherman. But Mr. 
Lincoln said, "General Grant, dismiss your fears. 
I know that Sherman has whipped or is to-day 
whipping Johnston." General Grant started up to 
the front of his chair. Every Secretary faced in 
upon the President. General Grant asked, "Pres- 
ident Lincoln, how do you know .^" Mr. Lincoln 
answered, "General Grant, I know. I had my old 
dream last night, the same old dream I have had 
before every great victory. I had it before An- 
tietam, and before Murfreesborough, and before 
Vicksburg, and before Gettysburg, and I had it 
again last night." General Grant, with his hard 
old head, without a particle of sentiment in it, said, 
"No great results followed Murfreesborough" — as 
much as to say, "Maybe you missed it again last 
night." President Lincoln answered, "I cannot 
help that. General; it was the same old dream. I 
was in a queer-shaped vessel, going at an incon- 
ceivable speed over an unknown sea toward an 
invisible shore, and I know Sherman has whipped 
or is to-day whipping Johnston." A side open 
toward the Infinite. 
Misunder- Look at him! Late in October of 1860, just 

stood by before the election of November 6, he said to Mr. 
Bateman, Secretary of Education for the State of 
Illinois, "Mr. Bateman, come into my room; I 
want to talk with you." Mr. Bateman went into 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 93 

his room. Mr. Lincoln locked the door, took up 
a little book, saying, "This book tells me how 
every man in Springfield is going to vote. Here 
are twenty-three ministers; all but three are going 
to vote against me, and they are all earnest Chris- 
tians. I am not a Christian, but God knows I 
would be one. I have carefully read the Bible, 
and I do not so understand this book" (drawing 
from his pocket a Bible). "These men know that 
I am for freedom in the Territories, freedom 
everywhere the Constitution will permit, and that 
my opponents are for slavery. With this book in 
their hands, in the light of which human bondage 
cannot live a moment, they are going to vote 
against me. I do not understand it at all." Then, 
walking the room a little, he stopped, and with 
trembling voice and cheeks wet with tears said, 
"I know there is a God and that he hates injustice His faith in 
and slavery. I see the storm coming and I know '° ^"'^ 
that his hand is in it. If he has a place and a 
work for me — and I think he has — I believe I am {^ 
ready. I am nothing, but truth is everything. I 
know I am right, because I know that liberty is 
right, for Christ teaches it, and Christ is God. 
Douglas doesn't care whether slavery is voted up 
or voted down, but God cares, and humanity 
cares, and I care, and with God's help I shall not 
fail. I may not see the end" (a hint at the vision 
at Salem in which he sees himself dying for the 



94 



PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 



Farewell to 
his step>- 
mother 



Republic), "but it will come and I shall be vin- 
dicated, and these good men will find that they 
have not read their Bible aright." No vindic- 
tiveness. 

Such a man could not fail to give the faith of 
the nation deathless inspiration. A little later, he 
went to take his farewell visit of his stepmother, 
of whom he was very fond, and who was very 
fond of him. She clung around his neck, crying, 
saying, "Abe, I shall never see you again. They 
will surely kill you. I am sure they will kill you." 
And instead of assuring her that he would be back 
in a little time, that the strife would be over, and 
that they could not get at him, which was the 
natural thing to do, he was silent, for the vision 
of Salem forbade his giving false comfort. See him 
creeping out of Springfield a few weeks after, 
starting for Washington. What a picture! There 
he stands, on the steps of the car, in the midst of 
the falling snow and of the falling tears of the 
friends of a lifetime. He said, "I now leave, not 
knowing when or ever" (another hint of the vision 
of Salem) "I shall return. I go to a task greater 
than that committed to Washington. Without the 
assistance of that Divine Being who ever attended 



him I cannot succeed. With that assistance I 
cannot fail. Pray for me to that Being who can 
go with me and remain with you and be eveiy- 
where present for good. Let us confidently hope 



V 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 95 

that all will yet be well. To his care commending 
you, as I hope in your prayer you will commend 
me, I bid you an affectionate farewell." 

From the day he uttered these reverential words Observance 
there never escaped from his lips one word that ^^ Sunday 
did not show the most simple and constant faith 
in God. November 16, 1862, he issued an order 
in which he says that "the sacred rights of Chris- 
tian soldiers and sailors, a becoming deference to 
the best sentiments of a Christian people, and a 
due regard for the divine will, demand that Sunday 
labor in the army and navy be reduced to the 
limits of strict necessity" — adopting the words of 
Washington, "At this time of public distress men 
may find enough to do in the service of God and 
their country without abandoning themselves to 
vice and immorality." His proclamations read like 
the Old Testament; sometimes they rise to the 
plane of David's utterances. He announced the 
victory at Gettysburg and asked the people to 
remember and reverence God with the profoundest 
gratitude. He thanked God publicly and officially 
for Vicksburg. He appointed August 6, 1863, as 
a day of thanksgiving, "to render the homage due Public 
the Divine Majesty, to invoke the influence of the tha^^s- 
Holy Spirit, to subdue the anger which has pro- 
duced and so long sustained a needless and cruel 
rebellion, to change the hearts of the insurgents, 
to guide the counsels of the government, to com- 



96 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

fort the suffering, and to lead the whole nation 
through paths of repentance and submission to the 
Divine Will back to the perfect enjoyment of union 
and fraternal peace." 
Praying for Liucolu Said again and again, "I have been 
the army drivcu many times to my knees by the over- 
whelming conviction that I had nowhere else to 
go." Again he said, *'I should be the most pre- 
sumptuous blockhead upon this footstool if I for 
one day thought that I could discharge the duties 
which have come upon me since I came into this 
place without the aid and enlightenment of One 
who is wiser and stronger than all others." Some- 
times when he received word of an important 
battle, if other duties would permit, he would take 
his Bible and go to his room and call mightily on 
God. Once he said, "If it were not for my firm 
belief in an overruling Providence it would be 
difficult for me in the midst of such complications 
of affairs to keep my reason on its seat." 
Testimony of Mr. Murdock, the great reader and actor, was 
Mr.Murdock a gucst at the White House. He made this state- 
ment over his own name: "I was disturbed. I 
could not sleep. I got out of my bed — it was two 
o'clock in the morning. I went out into the hall. 
I heard a strange moaning. Going along the hall, 
V,, I saw a door open a little ways and looking in I 
saw Mr. Lincoln lying on his face on the floor, 
praying mightily to God to give him wisdom and 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 97 

save the Republic. I turned around and went 
away softly as I could over the velvet carpet, feel- 
ing every step I took that I was in the presence 
of Almighty God. From that hour I never doubted 
which way the war would terminate." 

Rev. Dr. Hillis, when pastor of the church in OfDr. Hillis 
Music Hall, Chicago, said to me, "I have a woman 
in my congregation who is the daughter of the 
Presbyterian minister in whose church Mr. Lincoln 
worshiped during the war. She says, *Mr. Lincoln 
frequently came by our house in the evening, 
stopped at our door, and said to my father, "Doctor, 
you must pray to-night; there is bad work on in 
the army to-night." One night he came at half 
past one, called my father up, and said, "Doctor, 
you must come down and go to my room with me. 
I need you." My father went, found Mr. Lin- 
coln's room strewn with maps, where he was 
marking up the movements of the troops. He said 
to my father, "There is your room; you go in there 
and pray, and I'll stay here and watch." My 
father heard him repeatedly praying for the army. 
Three times he came to my father's room and fell 
down on his face on the floor by the side of my 
father and prayed mightily to God to "Bless the 
boys about to die for the Republic," and to save 
the Republic' " 

General Sickles lost a leg at Gettysburg. He Dependence 
was in the hospital at Washington. Mr. Lincoln upon prayer 



98 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

called upon him. General Rusling was present 
at the interview. I have this statement of the 
interview from the lips of General Sickles, and also 
General Rusling. General Sickles asked, "Pres- 
ident Lincoln, were you not alarmed during the 
Gettysburg days?" Mr. Lincoln answered, "No, 
General, I was not; some of our people were, but 
I was not. Stanton thought we had better put 
the archives on a gunboat, but I thought we would 
come out all right." General Sickles asked, 
"President Lincoln, why were you not alarmed .?" 
Mr. Lincoln hesitated a little and said, "Now, 
General, you have asked me, I will tell you. I 
went into my room, locked the door, got down on 
my knees, and said, 'O, Lord God, I have done 
absolutely everything I can, and now you must 
help!' and God told me that he would give me 
Gettysburg, and I believed him." General Sickles 
asked, "President Lincoln, what about Vicksburg .?" 
That was farther away, and we did not hear so 
soon. Mr. Lincoln said, "O, General, Vicksburg 
is all right. I have asked the Lord for Vicksburg 
and he is going to give me the whole thing." The 
battle of Gettysburg was brought on by a mistake, 
and it was fought with the highest courage on both 
sides. It was the high-water mark reached by the 
Confederacy. The chivalrous charge of the First 
Minnesota, when eighty-five per cent of the men 
and all but three commissioned officers went down 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 99 

in five minutes, made and broke the world's 
record for fatality. One of those officers told me 
this: "When I turned round, after the rebel artil- 
lery opened fire, I thought the men had fled. I 
could see only a few scattering men standing. 
They had been killed." Pickett's famous charge 
and repulse is another monument to American 
courage. At night, after the first day, General 
Meade paced his tent, not knowing what next to 
do, when a strange and strong impression seized 
him where to order up his reserves. He so ordered 
and was ready at daylight to meet the rebel ad- 
vance. A similar experience was given him the 
second night, with a similar fortunate result. Who 
can explain this mysterious ordering in these hours 
of national destiny .^^ 

I have been over and carefully studied the field Gettysburg 
of Gettysburg, and it is not difficult to point out 
more than one place where it is impossible to 
explain on any mere human basis why we were 
not swept from the earth. The first day the Con- 
federates drove us back through the village; the 
second day General Sickles on our left advanced 
over the open plain in front of him and was badly 
repulsed. Forces on our right were moved over to 
support General Sickles, leaving the works on our 
right deserted. Johnston (the fighting Johnston) 
swung round the hill and dropped into our deserted 
works. As he did so a strange fear impressed 



100 



PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 



vi 



Father 
Chinique 
saved by 
prayer 



him. He said, "This is a Yankee trick, a Yankee 
trick, but we will stay here and see what comes 
of it," and stayed. Not two hundred yards ahead 
of him was the bulk of the Union stores unpro- 
tected. A simple squad could have gone forward 
and ended Gettysburg. But no squad went for- 
ward. Gettysburg was not thus ended. Harris- 
burg and Philadelphia and New York were not 
taken. The Confederacy was not recognized. The 
Union was not destroyed. And I find the secret 
of success in the prayer and faith of that lone 
watcher in the White House. 

Many still remember the noted case of Father 
Chinique with the Roman Catholic Church. He 
was a French priest, with a large French following, 
not far from Kankakee. He became involved in 
some trouble with the Roman Catholic Irish Bishop 
in Chicago, and his persecutions were many. He 
built a church, and it was burned. He built a 
college down there, and that was burned. And in 
the course of his persecutions they had at different 
times thirty-two indictments against him, hoping to 
send him to state prison. They had one on a 
charge of assault upon a sister of one of the priests. 
He had for his attorney Judge Davis, afterward of 
the commission to decide between Hayes and 
Tilden for the Presidency. Davis told Chinique 
that he would like to have Lincoln on the case 
with him, and Chinique secured him. The night 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 101 

before the trial Lincoln went to Chinique and said, 
"The case is a foregone case against you. There 
is no power on earth that can save you to-morrow. 
You will certainly be condemned. Do you believe 
in the Bible?" Chinique said, "Yes." Lincoln 
said, "So do I. Do you believe in Daniel's God .?" 
He said, "Yes." Lincoln said, "So do I. Do you 
believe that Daniel's God can answer prayer to- 
day as of old .^" Chinique said, "Yes." Lincoln 
said, "So do I." Lincoln said, "He is your only 
hope; no one else can deliver you, and if you will 
give the night to prayer to him I will join you in 
it." They agreed to it, and Lincoln went to his 
room. The next morning Chinique reported that 
at three o'clock he heard a rap on his door, and 
opening it there was Lincoln, and the first thing 
he said was, "Daniel's God has heard and an- 
swered prayer. Your enemies are fleeing from 
town as fast as they can go to escape trouble. 
There will be no suit against you to-morrow." 
The reason was this: The priest had made a con- 
tract with his sister to give her one hundred and 
sixty acres of land if she would testify that Chinique 
made an assault upon her, and it happened that 
a door to an adjoining room was a little open and 
two women sat in there and heard the contract, 
and that night one of the women was disturbed 
about it and told her husband, and he said that 
she must go and tell Lincoln. The two women 



of faith 



lOS PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

together told Lincoln, and that defeated the plan 
and alarmed Chinique's enemies. When Lincoln 
signed the receipt for his retainer in this case he 
remarked, "This is my death warrant." 
Profession Coloncl Jacqucs before the war was a member 

of the Illinois Conference of Methodist preachers. 
His brother wrote me that Colonel Jacques had 
told him, "One day I preached on 'Ye must be 
born again.' Mr. Lincoln was present. On 
Monday night he came to the parsonage and said, 
*I heard your sermon. I think it is according to 
God's word. It contains an experience that I have 
not but ought to have.' Mr. Lincoln, my wife, 
and myself knelt down in our parlor and all 
prayed, and Mr. Lincoln said he found comfort in 
believing in Jesus Christ." 

When I pass through the shadows, which cannot 
be very far away, I humbly hope first to see the 
King in his beauty, but if anywhere in the great 
throng I shall see the stalwart form of Mr. Lincoln 
I shall know that I have gotten into the right 
company, for I present Mr. Lincoln as the best 
specimen of a Christian man I have ever encoun- 
tered in public life. 

It is no slight test of greatness to be good when 
all are sweeping by in the tide of evil. When 
stealing and murder are virtues, the common 
virtues have small chance. For power to resist a 
thousand grievances, a thousand malicious mis- 



men 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 103 

representations, and be forever misunderstood, and 
yet be calm, loving, unimpassioned, and forgiving, 
all regardless of self, taxes the best moral fiber 
known among men. Jeff Davis, in his inaugural, 
said, *'We will carry the war where it is easy to 
advance, where food for the sword and torch await 
our armies in the densely populated cities of the 
North.** Mr. Lincoln announced his determina- 
tion "to palliate, not aggravate, the horrors of 
civil war." This he did to the last act and the 
last breath. 

A father said to Mr. Lincoln, "My boy is going The biggest 
to be shot to-morrow. I want you to pardon him ^^^ among 
quick.'* Mr. Lincoln asked, "What did he do .?" 
"He slept on picket duty." "What did he do 
before he went into the army.?" "He worked on 
a farm near Harrisburg." "O, yes, no doubt he 
went to bed at dark like the chickens. Those 
officers had no right to expect that boy to keep 
awake all night. Of course I will pardon him." 
Writing out the pardon, he handed it to the father, 
saying, "Your boy is worth a great deal more to 
the Republic above ground than he is under it." 
And he said to J. G. Holland, who happened to 
be in the office, "I could not think of going into 
eternity with the blood of that boy on my skirts. 
I cannot consent to shoot him for such an act." 
This boy was found among the slain at Fredericks- 
burg, wearing next his heart a photograph of Mr. 



104 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

Lincoln, underneath which he had written, "God 

bless President Lincoln!" 

One of the generals went to Washington to 

prevent the pardon of a lot of deserters. Mr. 

Lincoln said, *'Mr. General, there are already too 

many weeping widows in the United States. For 

God's sake, don't ask me to add to the number, 

for I won't do it." 
Sympathy He kucw just how to cut dowu to the core of a 

tempered by question and state it so that the common people 

justice ^ . ^ '■ 

saw and felt it. When he sent Vallandigham 
South he said, *'It is easier to send him South to 
his friends than it is to shoot the poor boys he 
induces to desert." The farmers and their wives 
whose sons were in the army said, "Old Abe is 
right again." He was most pathetically entreated 
to pardon a slave trader who was in Newburyport 
Jail. Lincoln said to Mr. Alley, "If this man were 
guilty of the foulest murder that the arms of man 
could perpetrate, I might pardon him on that 
appeal. But a man who can steal helpless Afri- 
cans, and sell them into interminable bondage for 
money, can never receive pardon at my hands. 
No, he may rot in jail before he shall have liberty 
by an act of mine." His tenderness and sympathy 
were guided by reason and conscience. 

Were I to choose but two scenes to represent the 
life of Mr. Lincoln, they should be these: First, 
his giving the Proclamation of Emancipation, 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 105 

which brings out his self-reliance and his firmness 
and his justice and his wisdom, and makes him 
the Emancipator, the chief figure of American 
history, a figure that shall never grow dim in the 
eyes of men; the second, the restoration of a 
widow's son to his mother, showing his justice 
and his humanity, which was given by Mr. Car- 
penter, who was in the White House to paint Mr. 
Lincoln's portrait. Poorly clad, weeping, pale, she 
said to him, *'Mr. President, I had a husband and Help to 
three sons in the army. My husband has iust been ^'dowed 

mother 

killed, and I come to ask back my oldest son." 
He granted the request. She took the order and 
went to the field, only to see that oldest son die 
in the hospital from his wounds. She went again 
to the President, with a statement of facts by the 
surgeon. Mr. Lincoln read the backing on the 
order, and said, *'I know what you want; you 
need not ask for it. I will give you your next 
son," saying, as he wrote, "You have one and I 
have one; that is about right." The poor woman, 
standing by him, smoothed his hair with her hands, 
saying, while her tears fell upon his head, "God 
bless you. President Lincoln; may you live a thou- 
sand years and be the head of this great nation." 
More than any other man, he was the President 
of the common people and the father of the poor. 
Joshua F. Speed told me this incident: "Once 
visiting Washington Mr. Lincoln said to me, 'Why 



106 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

don't you come to see me, Joshua?' I replied, 
*You have too many to see you now.' Mr. Lincoln 
replied, 'They all want something. I want some 
one to see me. Come and give me an hour of the 
old days. Stay to-night after the levee.' It was 
Thursday. I did so. After eleven, everybody was 
gone. Lincoln stretched up his arms, coming 
toward me, and said, *Now we will have a good 
Plea for visit.' Just then there was a strange rustling 
draft rioters [^ ^j^g hcavy curtaius in one of the windows near 
us. I saw that he thought, as I did, that some 
one was there to assassinate him, for threats of 
assassination came with almost every mail. He 
said once of them that they were nothing when 
you got used to it. I sat where I could see Mr. 
Lincoln's face. In an instant there was the solid 
combination of courage and determination. Quick 
as a cat and strong as a tiger, he sprang to the 
window and pulled out onto the floor two large 
human figures, dressed in women's clothes. He 
said, "What are you skulking about my house for 
at this time of night .^" The figures began to cry 
and plead. They were two women from Potter 
County, Pennsylvania, a mother and her daughter- 
in-law, seeking the pardon of a draft rioter, son 
of one and husband of the other woman. Mr. 
Lincoln's face softened into tenderest pity. He 
took them by the hands, lifted them up, held on 
to their hands so they could not get their arms 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 107 

about him, and said, *Where are your papers?' 
One said, *I have none. The lawyer would charge 
me ten dollars; then I could not come. I had 
rather see you without papers than send papers 
without myself.' He said, 'Yes, I know those 
cases. There are twenty-two of them. They have 
been in prison too long already. You go yonder 
and sit till I get the papers.* He rang for a serv- 
ant, and handing him a card, said, *Take that to 
the War Department.' A lieutenant-colonel came 
in presently with the papers in the Potter County 
riots. Mr. Lincoln took them and began writing 
on the backs of the papers an order for pardon And their 
and signing his name. The lieutenant-colonel said, P"^<^^ 
'Mr. President, those are the worst cases we have. 
We had to bring men back from the front to put 
them down when we could ill afford it. They 
ought to rot in their cells.' Mr. Lincoln said, 
'That is right. I like to hear you talk. You are 
making a good speech.' But he kept signing the 
orders for pardon. When he had signed them all, 
handing the papers to the officer, he said, 'Colonel, 
you do that if you know what is good for you.' 
The old woman said, 'I am a Catholic, but I shall 
pray for you every day and I shall see you in 
heaven.' As the women went out Mr. Lincoln 
turned and said to me, 'There, I have done some- 
thing at last; that pays me for this day's work.' 
I rose to go. Mr. Lincoln said, 'Don't go, Joshua.' 



108 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

I said, *It is late, you must rest.* Mr. Lincoln 
said, with inexpressible sadness, 'No, don't go. 
To-morrow is Friday, and I never sleep Thursday 
nights.' *What do you say, Mr. Lincoln.? What 
do you mean.?' 'To-morrow is execution day in 
the army, and if I do not sign the boys' papers I 
know they will be shot to-morrow. But the 
generals say that it costs more lives to pardon than 
it does to shoot, so I cannot pardon; but I never 
sleep Thursday nights. Stay with me, Joshua.' " 

His great heart, the biggest heart that ever beat 
among men, beat heavily and was almost broken 
under the sorrows of the civil war. He came to 
the White House a giant; he staggered out of it 
a shadow, worn down in the service of the Re- 
public. 
Place in Mr. Lincoln's place in history is fixed and easily 

history uudcrstood. He came into Washington with one 

solitary companion. He was carried out of it with 
greater pomp than was ever awarded to any other 
American. Judges and senators were his eulogists. 
Cities were his guards, States were his bearers, 
nations were his attendants, and the weeping 
millions of mankind were his mourners. Victoria 
sent her sympathy, "A widow to a widow." The 
French people sent a bejeweled casket, saying, 
"The heart of France is in this casket." It is 
touching to hear the farmers in central Illinois say, 
"The brown thrush did not sing for a year after 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 109 

he died." He was born an American peasant and 
died an American king. 

^ Do you ask me whence his greatness.? I ask 
you whence the soldier of a man comes. We can 
guess at that in part. A citizen, clothed in a 
soldier's uniform, armed with a soldier's weapons, 
fed on a soldier's rations, and marching to a 
soldier's music, is not a soldier. He is only a 
citizen, clothed, armed, fed, and marched like 
a soldier. The soldier of a man is worn in by 
much drilling. It is worried in by long marches. 
It is settled in by lonely picket watches. It is 
filtered in by the rains of heaven. It is distilled 
in by the dews of night. It is starved in by half 
a biscuit a day. It is blown in by shot and shell. 
It is thrust in by bayonet and saber. It is trampled 
in by iron hoofs. It is crushed in by artillery 
wheels. That is whence the real soldier comes. 
This may help us to guess by proper reasoning 
whence Mr. Lincoln's greatness. It was rubbed in 
by a severe father. It was petted in by a loving 
and praying mother. It was warmed in by the 
overbrooding angel of integrity. It was worn in 
by long nights of watching while other men slept. 
It was hissed in by the vipers that wriggled under 
his feet. It was stung in by the petty jealousies 
of rivals who saw only his place. It was thrust in 
by the slanders of a malicious press. It was kissed 
in by the Judas Iscariots who sought his confi- 



110 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

dence only to betray it. It was starved in by his 
solitude in the long night of the war. It was 
burned in by the fires of patriotism that never 
cooled till his great heart ceased to beat. That 
is whence the greatness of Mr. Lincoln came. 

I would not pluck one laurel wreath from the 
statues of the noble dead. I would rather place 
in their midst another statue that shall adorn and 
honor their glorified company. We are yet too 
near Mr. Lincoln to award him the glory he de- 
serves. We remember too well his form to realize 
that this man standing among us like a father yet 
looms above us like a monarch. 

Nearly a generation has passed since those pitiful 
and fierce days. Nearly all that great host that made 
the earth tremble, made the world wonder, made 
our country glorious, has passed over to the great 
majority. The great President is gone, and his 
Cabinet is gone, and the great commanders. General 
I Grant, General Sherman, General Sheridan, Gen- 
\ eral Logan, General Thomas, and a great host of 
heroes have marched over and pitched their tents 
on "Fame's eternal camping ground." Those of 
us who prayed for their success or argued for their 
defense or marched beneath their eagles see just 
before us the pontoon which shortly we must 
march over. In this presence, not this earthly 
presence, but the upper presence, the presence of 
our mighty dead, we can afford to tell the truth. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 111 

I do no man any injustice when I say, without ^ 
controversy, measured by what he did, God's meas- 
urement, judged by the deeds done in the body, 
Mr. Lincoln stands without a peer. He stands 
alone in the world. He stands alone in human 
history. He came to the government by a minority 
vote, without an army, without a navy, without 
money, without munitions; he stepped into the 
most stupendous, most widespread, most thor- 
oughly equipped and appointed, most deeply 
planned and infamous rebellion of all history. 
Traitors were in every department. Treason was 
the rule, loyalty the exception. He was alone in 
Washington, armed foes were close at hand, a 
large and increasing rebel army almost within 
cannon-shot of the Capitol. His friends were far 
away in the North. All telegraphic and railroad 
connections with distant friends were severed. 
yHe conciliated his rivals, compacted his friends, 
flanked politicians, marshaled Wall Street, out- 
witted Copperheads, and conquered foes. He 
stamped upon the earth, and two millions of armed 
men sprang up for his defense. He spoke to the 
sea, and the mightiest navy the world had ever 
seen crowned every wave. He breathed into the 
air, and money and munitions rained upon the 
people. An administrator, he saved the nation in 
the perils of unparalleled strife. A statesman, he 
justified his measures by their success. A philan- 



112 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

thropist, he gave liberty to one race and freedom 
to another. A moraHst, he bowed from the sum- 
mit of human power to the foot of the cross and 
became a Christian. A mediator, he exercised 
mercy under the most absolute obedience to law. 
A leader, he was no partisan. A commander in 
a great civil war, he was untainted with blood. 
A ruler in desperate times, he was unsullied with 
crime. A man, he has left no word of passion, 
no thought of malice, no trick of craft, no act of 
jealousy, no purpose of mere selfish ambition. 
Thus perfected, without a model and without a 
peer, he was dropped into these troubled years to 
adorn and ennoble all that is good and all that 
is great in our humanity and to present to all 
coming time the embodiment of the divine idea 
of free government. Measured by what he did, 
he towers from his girth up above every other 
mere man for six thousand years. 




ULYSSES S. GRANT 

From an origincd oil portrait by Theodore Pine. General 

Grant sat for this portrait. It was afterwards 

presented to Bishop Fowler. Never 

before published. 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 



By special request of the Mayor and city authorities of San 
Francisco, California, Bishop Fowler delivered an oration at the 
Grant memorial services held in the Mechanics' Pavilion, San 
Francisco, on August 8, 1885. Subsequently he prepared this 
oration in its present form. 



118 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 

GOD honors "the arduous greatness of 
things achieved." Greatness rises on the 
pedestal of the centuries. Heroes, like 
coral continents, grow forever. Immortal heroes 
are those who make a bend in the stream of human 
history. 

Alexander conquered the Persian Darius on the Military 
plains of Arbela, perpetuated the Greek colonies ^f""^^ °^ 
springing up in the track of his conquest, and 
made the rich language of the Greeks the lan- 
guage of the known world. He is known as 
Alexander the Great. 

Hannibal slid down the sides of the Alps into 
the fields of Italy and intimidated Rome for half 
a generation. He furnishes the one name that 
makes Carthage honorable among the nations. 

In the pastures about Tours, Karl Martel 
smote the invading Arab, saved Christendom from 
destruction, and exalted the Cross above the 
Crescent in Europe forever. He is honored as 
the Hammer of God. 

At Blenheim, Marlborough broke the power of 
the Bourbon family, and delivered imperiled Prot- 
estantism. His name is written all over England. 

115 



116 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

At Austerlitz, Napoleon vanquished the enemies 
of his country, made sure constitutional liberty for 
Europe, and identified himself with the brightest 
glory of France. He stands in history as the em- 
bodiment of military genius. 

At Waterloo, Wellington crushed the power of 
Napoleon and gave modern liberty in England a 
new lease of life. He stands chiseled in the House 
of Lords as the Iron Duke. 

Yonder, before the gates of Vicksburg, "the 
Gibraltar of America," yonder in the passes about 
Chattanooga, the Marathon of the central South, 
and yonder in the marshes of the Wilderness, the 
Death Valley of the Rebellion, Grant broke the 
military power of the Confederacy and made the 
end of American slavery an accomplished fact. 
His name will be cherished and honored as long 
as there beats anywhere on the earth a human 
heart in sympathy with freedom. 
Grant's Modcstly he takes his seat in this little group 

superiority of the greatest military commanders who have 
turned the stream of human history. It seems to 
be honor enough to sit in the war-council of the 
world with Alexander and Hannibal, with Martel 
and Marlborough, with Napoleon and Wellington. 
But this is not all. Grant exceeded each of them 
at the point where each was greatest. He far 
exceeded Alexander in the breadth of his cam- 
paigns, and Marlborough in the certainty and 



ULYSSES S. GRANT IIT 

•number of his victories. His Vicksburg campaign 
overcame vastly more and greater difficulties than 
those confronted by Hannibal or Napoleon in 
crossing the Alps, and it exhausted the resources 
of military science. Chattanooga eclipses in vigor, 
courage, mental resources, genius, and results any- 
thing ever achieved by Napoleon. The Wilderness 
in several of its single days surpasses all the ham- 
mering done by Martel or endured by Wellington. 
It is two or three Waterloos piled up and heaped 
together and pounded out by the enormous ability 
of this silent soldier. He fought more battles 
without losing a single field, took more and better 
soldiers prisoners, vanquished more and mightier 
armies, subjugated more territory with more 
natural fastnesses, and wore out more opposing 
forces than this half dozen best fighters of all 
races and of all centuries, all put together. And 
this for the greatest of causes, that he might secure 
freedom for one race and give liberty to another, 
and that "the last experiment of a free government 
might not perish from the earth." Grant sits 
rightfully in the center of this group of military 
heroes. He towers above them in the solitude of 
his military genius. 

The scaffolding in which this great, God-called, Scaffolding 
God-anointed, God-smitten life was builded is 
easily presented. Ulysses S. Grant was born of 
Jesse Root Grant and Mary Simpson Grant (pious. 



118 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

fighting Scotch blood), April 27, 1822. His father 
was marked as a brave man, known among his 
neighbors as fearless and determined. His mother 
was a quiet, persistent, devoted Christian woman. 
He inherited the best qualities of each. He entered 
the Military Academy at West Point July 1, 1839, 
graduated June 30, 1843, and was immediately 
assigned to the Fourth Infantry; entered Mexico as 
Brevet Second Lieutenant, under General Taylor, 
in May, 1846; was in his first battle at Palo Alto, 
May 6, 1846; was brevetted for courage and ability 
on the field twice in five days; married Miss Julia 
B. Dent August 22, 1848; went to California in 
1852; resigned July 31, 1854; experimented for a 
time for a living as a coal dealer, real-estate 
auctioneer, and farmer; returned to Galena, Illinois, 
in 1859, where he clerked in a leather store till 
the firing on Fort Sumter. In April, 1861, he was 
a clerk in the Governor's oflSce, Springfield, Illi- 
nois; was made Colonel of Twenty-first Illinois 
Volunteers in June, 1861; Brigadier-General, 
July, 1861; Major- General, 1863; Lieutenant- 
General, March 9, 1864; General, July 25, 1866; 
elected President of the United States, November, 
1868, and November, 1872; went around the 
world in 1877-79. At eight o'clock and ten min- 
utes, Eastern time, July 23, 1885, he received his 
supreme promotion, from the summit of Mount 
McGregor. 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 119 

"On Fame's eternal camping ground 

His silent tent is spread, 
And Glory guards, with solemn round. 
The bivouac of the dead." 

This rude scaffolding contains a most majestic 
and magnificent structure. More time than we 
have had is needed for just measurement of the 
structure. 

The stone-cutters in the Parthenon were blinded 
by the dust of the chiseling, so they could not 
comprehend the symmetrical and imposing temple 
that had alighted from the brain of Ictinus upon 
the hills of Athens. But all the centuries since 
have seen it. So we are blinded by the dust from 
the little blocks which we are chiseling. We can 
poorly appreciate the symmetry and magnificence 
of the structure which has been builded in our 
midst and before our eyes. 

General Fry says he first saw General Grant on Grant at 
the day of his graduation from West Point. Cadet ^^* ^^"^^ 
Grant was called, and a slight, smooth-faced, 
blue-eyed youth, weighing about one hundred and 
twenty pounds, rode out quietly on a sorrel horse. 
There was nothing striking about his appearance 
except the perfection with which he sat and con- 
trolled his horse. A bar was placed a little higher" 
than a man's head. The young cadet took his 
horse over the bar with the greatest composure 
and ease. The world has become familiar with 



120 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

that face grown over with short, positive whiskers, 
and also with seeing him ride over all the hurdles 
and obstacles crowded into a turbulent life. 
Made his Grant made his own way. No man ever made 

own way |^jg ^^j ^^ ^]^g frout more exclusively by his own 
abilities than did this man. In the truest sense 
he was a self-made man, though he took advantage 
of a thorough training for his work. Indeed, no 
man was ever yet really more than half made who 
did not make himself. The chief disadvantage 
of men who have made themselves without the 
advantage of institutions is their temptation to 
worship their maker. Grant was free from this 
overgrown egotism. The only self-made man I 
know is the new woman! 

He made his way against all difficulties and 
with the least possible outside help. Eight days 
after the firing on Fort Sumter he was drilling a 
company of men. In a little time he went to 
Springfield to see the Governor of Illinois, and 
offered his services. Educated at the expense of 
the nation, he felt in conscience bound to tender 
his services to the government. 
His services Nobody Wanted him. His letter to the Secretary 
of War tendering his services was never so much 
as answered. He went to Cincinnati to offer his 
services to McClellan, then attracting some atten- 
tion as the favorite of General Scott. Grant hung 
around McClellan's headquarters a few days, and 



refused 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 121 

tried repeatedly in vain to obtain an interview 
with McClellan. This scene makes us think of 
the doctor who had a patient with a wen on his 
neck. The wen grew till it tipped the patient's 
head over to one side. Then the doctor advised 
that they cut off the head to make room for the 
wen. 

Grant returned to Springfield and took service Given 
as a clerk in the Governor's office. His knowledge ^^^f°^^ 

rcsinient 

and method attracted attention and he was offered 
the command of a regiment. The Twenty-first 
Illinois had an undesirable reputation for insub- 
ordination. Officers avoided it. Some one sug- 
gested, "Give it to Grant, he will tame it." It 
was done, and the new Colonel showed his ability 
by declining transportation for his men, and 
marching them across the State to Quincy. This 
march tamed them. 

His early achievements were accomplished with- Lacked 
out the support of his superiors, often almost ^"pp^^* ^^ 

• 1 ^ • • • TT 1 1 T-i 1 superiors 

Without their permission. He asked x^remont, then 
in command at Saint Louis, for permission to 
take Paducah. Fremont answered, "You can try 
if you feel strong enough." He found this tele- 
gram in camp after the battle. He asked Halleck, 
Fremont's successor, in command at Saint Louis, 
for permission to take Fort Henry. Halleck's 
aide telegraphed, "Don't be too rash," and this 
was received after the capture of Fort Henry. He 



accidents 



122 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

asked permission to take Fort Donelson. Halleck 
telegraphed, "Spades and shovels are on the way 
to make Fort Henry secure." But Grant took 
Donelson and thus secured Fort Henry before the 
spades and shovels reached him. Grant was no 
spade- and-shovel general. 
Historic A great general has said, "If C. F. Smith" (a 

pet of Halleck's) "had lived Grant would have 
disappeared from history after Donelson." But 
C. F. Smith's horse stumbled (not Grant's) and 
so injured Smith that he did not survive. In 
great emergencies there seems to be a supreme 
power at work for the endangered cause. Has- 
drubal was at Apulia in Italy and his brother 
Hannibal was at Zama, less than two hundred 
miles away. Hasdrubal sent a messenger to ask 
Hannibal to unite with him in South Umbria and 
thus together march against Rome. No power on 
earth could have withstood their united armies. 
But the messenger, near his intended destination, 
fell into the hands of a Roman squad. Not 
Hasdrubal's letter reached Hannibal, but Has- 
drubal's head. The accident of dropping that note 
into the hand of a Roman soldier made the civiliza- 
tion of Europe Latin instead of Semitic. The 
stumbling of Smith's instead of Grant's horse made 
millions of slaves free and maintained one free 
and unconquerable nation for this north tem- 
perate belt. 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 123 

Grant encountered that strongest of human Antipathies 
antipathies, the antipathy which mere talent has 
against genius. His career, so rapid and so bril- 
liant, leaping in eight short years from an obscure 
clerkship in a small leather store of an unknown 
Western interior town to the White House, and 
to the loftiest summit of human fame, called forth 
the hottest and most malignant criticisms and 
abuse. In this nothing happened to him but what 
is common to the lot of such men. Wellington 
was mobbed in the streets of London on an anni- 
versary of the battle of Waterloo. Scipio Africanus, 
who had crushed Hannibal at Zama, was arraigned 
by a factious crowd and put on trial. He repelled 
his accusers by reminding the people that it was 
the anniversary of the battle of Zama, and then 
went away to die in voluntary exile. 

It is not strange that Grant had to encounter 
calumny and detraction. The measure of great- 
ness among men is capacity for pain, and the V" 
proof of greatness is the bulk of calumny. Where 
the carcass is, there are the eagles gathered. 
"Blessed are ye when men shall revile you, and 
persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil 
against you falsely, for my sake." 

In September, 1872, a lecturer in western New intensity 
York gave his demonstration from the prophecies °^ ^**^^ 
that the end of the world was at hand. He footed 
up a column of dates and figures on his blackboard. 



124 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

coming out with the conclusion, *'The end of the 
world will come October 28, 1872." A man in 
the audience said, *'Amen, glory to God!" The 
lecturer looked at him and went on. Another 
column of dates and figures, and the same con- 
clusion, *'The end of the world will come October 
28, 1872." Again the response, "Glory to God in 
the highest!" The lecturer paused, and the audi- 
ence all looked at the seeming fanatic. Another 
column, and the same conclusion, and a louder 
response, when the lecturer said, *'My friend, what 
is there in that awful catastrophe to please you so 
much.^" The man replied, "Hallelujah! Glory to 
God! The world is coming to an end October 28, 
j a week before election. Anything to beat old 
T Grant!" 
Magnitude Measurements are relative. The girls in the 
of the Vale of Cashmere, who can easily distinguish eight 

hundred shades in color where the untrained eye 
sees less than half a dozen shades, would not re- 
gard our shadings as wonderful. In the War of 
the Revolution special mention is made officially of 
receiving reinforcements in Virginia of "one regular 
soldier and two volunteers," on the very soil 
where in the Civil War reinforcements of forty 
thousand regulars were not thought to be unusual. 
In the Mexican War, where General Grant took 
his first lessons in actual war, the figures and 
forces seem most insignificant. General Taylor in- 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 125 

vaded Mexico with three thousand men, armed 
with flintlocks and taking as their heaviest artillery 
two eighteen-pound guns. General Taylor seldom 
wore a uniform and habitually sat on his horse 
with both feet on one side. The change from this 
little more than coon hunt to the vast proportions 
of our Civil War almost staggers our compre- 
hension. These figures will help us up to some 
better comprehension of the hero of Appomattox. 
Look at the adversary against whom we sent our 
leather clerk into the arena. Four months after 
the firing on Fort Sumter the Southern Confederacy 
seemed as firmly established as if it had stood 
four centuries. It had more territory than any 
state in Europe except Russia; larger than the 
empire of Napoleon at its best, with a fertile soil 
filling the marts of the world with products which 
the world must have; with hundreds of miles of 
water front, where all the fleets of the earth could 
anchor with contraband material; with vast moun- 
tain ranges with their impenetrable fastnesses, 
where all her citizens could hide in safety; with 
marshes and bayous that could engulf all the armies 
of strangers that might venture into them; with 
vast regions more wild and difficult of access than 
was Gaul to the legions of Caesar; with a brave 
and warlike people, born of the conquering race, 
intelligent, conscientious, fighting Anglo-Saxons, 
counted by millions; with leaders of great ability 



126 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

and renown and confidence; with munitions of 
war the most perfect and abundant; with a resist- 
ance against the Federal forces that had been 
nourished and strengthened for three generations; 
with millions of obedient and devoted slaves who 
had supported the South in the luxury of private 
life for two centuries, and could support the South 
in the frugalities of camp life for ten centuries; 
with outspoken friends in and of every court and 
cabinet of Europe, except the court of the little 
kingdom of Prussia, and tbe court of the mag- 
nificent empire of the Czar; more important still, 
with a great host of friends who had done the 
bidding of the South for years in every State and 
community of the North — the Confederacy, thus 
planted, manned, armed, equipped, led, supported, 
inspired, and encouraged, rose at once as a mighty 
nation into the midst of all the nations of the 
earth. It was the most extended, most numerously 
accepted, most thoroughly organized, most solidly 
compacted, most ably officered, most lavishly en- 
riched, most intelligently defended, and most terri- 
bly purposed rebellion known to history. It was 
engaged in a strife that could be settled by no 
possible treaty and compromise. It meant either 
the destruction of the Union or the destruction of 
the Confederacy. Against this colossal power, 
crouching among the jungles of the South, fattening 
on the poisonous exhalations of a hostile climate. 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 127 

and under the burning rays of a tropical sun, we 
sent forth our captain from the leather store of 
Galena. In four short years he marched from 
Paducah to Appomattox, threading every beach and 
landing, wading every river and marsh, seizing 
every harbor and inlet, sinking every ironclad and 
gunboat, taking every city and hamlet, conquering 
every army and legion, capturing every officer and 
soldier, utterly annihilating and wiping out from 
the face of the earth the colossal structure of the 
Southern Confederacy, till the amazed nations of 
the earth wondered at the nightmare that had 
beguiled them, and hastened to make friends with 
the chieftain who had disappointed their hopes. 

It is difficult to present Grant's generalship Great as a 
without presenting the history of the Civil War. general 
Sherman said that General Halleck was a theoretic 
soldier. Grant a practical soldier. There was 
nothing that any of Grant's officers could do that 
he could not do as well or better. With a hard 
head packed full of common sense, leaving no 
storage for visions and fancies, he saw the facts 
in each situation. 

It is difficult to analyze General Grant, because 
he is so simple and complete. Like Lincoln, he 
is like a sphere; approached from any side he 
seems always to project farthest toward you. Try 
to divide, and each section is like all the rest. Cut 
through him, and he is all the way through alike. 



128 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

"We can only catalogue his distinguishing character- 
istics. His leading characteristic in mind, was prac- 
tical reason; in will, firmness; in moral nature, 
integrity; in religious nature, loyalty to duty; in 
emotional nature, love of family, fidelity to friends, 
and sympathy with humanity; in faith, New Testa- 
ment Christianity; in manner, simplicity; in bear- 
ing, dignity; in scholarship, a mastery of English 
and of his calling; in achievement, a military 
genius; in the abiding motives for action, patriot- 
ism; in poise, absolute courage; in general make-up, 
preternatural endurance; and in all things, a man. 
Grant was essentially great in all great matters. 
Sought The qualities of his mind were such that he was 

substance movcd Only by the substance of things. As a 
student he won greatest credit in the heavy branches 
— mathematics, engineering, and fort-constructing. 
In his great campaigns he seized as if by the in- 
stinct of an infallible genius the points of advantage. 
He saw what was to be done. What more im- 
portant points than Paducah, controlling the mouth 
of the Ohio; Shiloh, practically guarding Kentucky 
and Tennessee; Vicksburg, the gate of the Missis- 
sippi; Chattanooga, the key to Georgia and Ala- 
bama ? He saw distinctly exactly what was to be 
done. He said to Bismarck, "We were fighting 
an enemy with whom we could not make a peace. 
We had to destroy him; no convention, no treaty, 
was possible — only destruction." This clear state- 



of things 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 129 

ment contains the secret of his war policy, and 
made his brilliant career only a question of time 
and opportunity. 

He was fighting, like Lincoln, to maintain the Fighting 
Union. He came slowly up to the slavery question. fortheUmon 
In Missouri a frightened, panting negro ran into 
camp and up to headquarters, and said, *'Mr. 
Oflficer, I'se a feared Massa will cotch me. Where 
can I go.^" Grant said, "Take care of yourself. 
We are not hunting negroes, but rebels." The 
boys soon hid the slave under some blankets. 
Presently the master appeared and demanded the 
slave. Grant said, *'We are not hunting negroes, 
but rebels. Take care of yourself.'* Grant simply 
did his present duty. When Lincoln struck the 
resources of the South by the Emancipation 
Proclamation he was ready for it and gave it his 
fullest support. 

Every step of this man's long march for the Seized 
rescue of the Republic is worth most careful study, strategic 
But in the brief time proper for this lecture only 
a few things may be recalled and relived. Paducah, 
his first movement against the rebellion, showed 
the presence of the great General as certainly as 
did Mission Ridge. Quickly done, it opened the 
Ohio River, quieted the talk about neutrality in 
Kentucky, and furnished Grant's first important 
public document, in which he distinguished be- 
tween acts and ideas, soldiers and citizens. Ordered 



130 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

to make a demonstration before Belmont, he there 
fought his first important battle and won the first 

First victory of that long unbroken list of victories which broke 
the world's record. His raw troops were so elated 
that they became uncontrollable. The officers were 
running about as on a Fourth of July celebration, 
making patriotic speeches for the Union. Unable 
to obtain order. Grant fired his own camp to 
attract the attention of the hostile gunners at 
Columbus. This new danger restored order to his 
own men. 

Donelson Donelsou and Shiloh, within a few days of each 

other, illustrated many of Grant's marvelous abil- 
ities. The acres of the dead at Donelson were 
paved so thickly over that one could traverse the 
field without stepping on the ground. Grant led 
the charges in person, passing continually back 
and forth, with that celebrated cigar in his fingers, 
before the men in the thickest of the conflict, im- 
parting his own courage and determination to the 
raw recruits. He said of the conduct of these men, 
"That demonstrated that Western recruits could 
do anything when they were properly led." That 
cigar was mentioned in the dispatches, and in a 
few days thirteen hundred boxes were sent to 
Grant, and he received credit for being a great 
smoker beyond the fact. 

Donelson, which Grant called "our first clear 
victory," marked a new era in the issue between 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 131 

the North and the South. It transformed the 
strife from a parade into a war. It demonstrated 
the ability of raw Western volunteers to endure 
and win, under any circumstances. It sent North 
thousands of prisoners, more than had been taken 
at once in any field since the surrender of Ulm to 
Bonaparte. It broke the strategical line of defense 
of the sacred soil of the South. Immediately 
Bowling Green was abandoned. Nashville sur- 
rendered without a blow. Impregnable Columbus, 
which held the Mississippi and threatened the 
Ohio, was deserted, Missouri was secured, Ken- 
tucky was practically freed from invaders, and 
Tennessee was restored to the Union. Well might 
this battle, where we learned about ''unconditional 
surrender," give new spirit to the army and the 
country, and turn all eyes upon the silent soldier 
whose form and face will never be forgotten. 

Here and at Shiloh Grant illustrated the supreme infallible 
secret of all his fighting. It was this, as he stated '"stinct for 

Victory 

it himself: "There comes always in a close battle 
a critical moment when both armies have done 
their best up to their natural endurance. Each is 
trembling and uncertain at the limit, anxious to 
see what will come next. To discover this supreme 
moment and then do more than any man could be 
asked or demanded to do, strike first and hard, is 
always to win." This is Grant's account of how 
he won his victories. This is the supreme gift of 



132 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

genius, to do in that critical moment what is im- 
possible to mere talent, namely, lift the common 
soldiers into heroes. This Grant did at Donelson, 
and repeated on every close field to Appomattox. 
This gave him what Sherman called the "infallible 
instinct of victory." 
Never General Buell, coming inexcusably late after the 

expected battle. Criticised Grant for fighting with the Ten- 
nessee River behind him and transports for only 
ten thousand of his forty thousand men. Grant 
said, "What of that .?" Buell said, "You could not 
have retreated." Grant said, "We did not want 
to retreat." "But suppose you had to retreat.^" 
Grant replied, "We could not retreat." Buell 
affirmed, "You might be obliged to retreat." 
Grant said, "Well, if we had been obliged to re- 
treat, transportation for ten thousand would have 
been sufficient. It would have carried all there 
would have been left of us." He knew how and 
when to strike the effectual blow. Donelson and 
Shiloh thus became the beginning of the end. 

Nature is true. She fosters no shams. So all 
great natures are true. History sooner or later 
sifts out all pretense. Grant took up into his 
nature the least possible that would drop through 
the sieve of the centuries. His first report about 
Vicksburg, that greatest campaign on record, was 
a telegram written inside the walls. He sought and 
valued only real results. 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 133 

In the East he set himself to destroy Lee's army. The problem 
He said, "The problem of the war is not to take ^^ t^^ ^*'" 
Richmond, but to destroy the military power of 
Lee's army." He said to a friend, as he went out 
to confront Lee, "It is a question of numbers and 
supplies. Lee has one hundred thousand men; I 
have one hundred and fifty thousand. I shall 
destroy as many of his men as he does of mine. 
By and by he will have fifty thousand and I will 
have one hundred thousand. Then I shall capture 
him." And he did. Both armies were greatly 
strengthened by reinforcements. 

He says in his report as Lieutenant-General, His policy 
July 22, 1865, "From an early period in the rebel- 
lion I had been impressed with the idea that active 
and continuous operation of all the troops that 
could be brought into the field, regardless of season 
or weather, was necessary to a speedy termination 
of the war. From the first I was firm in the con- 
viction that no peace could be had that would be 
stable and conducive to the happiness of the people, 
both North and South, until the military power 
of the rebellion was entirely broken. I therefore 
determined, first, to use the greatest number of 
troops practicable against the armed force of the 
enemy; second, to hammer continuously against the 
armed force of the enemy and his resources, until 
by mere attrition, if in no other way, there should 
be nothing left for him but submission to the 



134 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

Constitution and laws of the land." These pro- 
found convictions dictated his famous statement 
to General Meade, ** General Lee is our objective 
point." 
Lee's army General Lee was the favorite general of the 
the objective gouth, and his army the center of the military 
power of the South. So when General Grant took 
command of all the armies of the Union he formed 
one plaUy covering all the country and reaching 
every officer and soldier. Every soldier had his 
face set toward Lee's army. Meade on the Rapi- 
dan, Sherman on the Tennessee, Butler on the 
James, Sigel in West Virginia, and even Banks in 
Louisiana, on the far-away Red River, were to 
push on from whatever direction, against whatever 
obstacles, toward Lee's army. Thus, from the day 
he left the Rapidan, it was a constant, persistent, 
desperate, resistless purpose at all costs to wipe 
out Lee's army. A repulse was nothing provided 
it had cost the enemy a fair amount of loss to pro- 
duce it. The order was simple: "Fight along the 
whole line!" From Spottsylvania, after six days 
of awful fighting, he telegraphed Secretary Stanton, 
"I propose to fight it out on this line if it takes 
all summer." 

After thirty days of "continuous hammering" he 
had so wasted Lee's army by attrition that retreat 
within the defenses of Richmond was a necessity. 
Then followed the gathering in of all the great 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 135 

armies, till at Appomattox everything gave way 
before this continuous hammering. 

It is difficult to comprehend the vast numbers Vast 
which this man handled and met. The Con- ""™^" 
federacy had, at its best, January 1, 1863, 750,000 
available men. The Union's available force was 
1,500,000. The North sent into the service during 
the war 2,656,553, the Confederacy 1,500,000. 
History certifies no such armies. Alexander fought 
his great battle of Arbela with 60,000 men. Hanni- 
bal started from Carthage with 102,000, but 
reached Italy with only 26,000. Napoleon had 
only 72,000 men at Waterloo. Grant took 75,000 
prisoners in Virginia alone, and killed and wounded 
nearly as many more. 

The courage of these armies is as important as Courage 
the quantity. Since Waterloo the modes of war- ^^as^^ed 

DV losses 

fare have been revolutionized by the invention of 
better weapons. Before Waterloo Frederick lost in 
his battles 18.42%; the Austrians, in seven battles, 
11.7%; the French, in nine Napoleon battles, 
22.38%; all parties at Waterloo, 40%. Since that 
battle the Germans, in eight battles, have lost 11%; 
the Austrians, in two battles, 8%; the English, in 
four battles, 10%. In our Civil War, in eleven 
battles, the Union forces lost 12.89%, and the 
Confederate forces lost 14.16%. The "Gray'* was 
not one hair's breadth behind the "Blue" in 
courage. Modern wars have furnished no soldiers 



136 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

with the courage and endurance of these Americans. 
These great armies were made of the best metal. 
They could endure continuous hammering and go 
into a spiral scabbard. 
Quality of The quality also counts. The world has never 

soldiers produccd better soldiers than these Anglo-Saxons. 
It is the best fighting blood of history. Fighting for 
liberty, they can fight on their own hook. Russia 
is prevented from using the best weapons in her 
service because her soldiers are not equal to the 
use of any but the simplest. But these Americans 
can handle anything that genius can invent. They 
have mastered all the trades, and can utilize them. 
They can build bridges, launch vessels, construct 
pontoons, repair weapons, create munitions, distill 
remedies, harness the forces of nature, dig trenches 
by automatic dredges, construct and operate rail- 
road and telegraph lines, hurl whole divisions into 
a charge by a railroad train, wheel and deploy 
them by telegraph to meet cavalry or avoid artil- 
lery. , Charging through a country, they can create 
a desert with one hand, and in an hour with the 
other hand reconstruct the whole civilization. A 
retreating Confederate, having been ordered to blow 
up a tunnel, responded, "Just as you say, sir, but 
it is useless; old Sherman is coming, and he always 
carries a lot of spare tunnels and he will put down 
another here in ten minutes." The quality of 
these armies exalts the abilities required to handle 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 137 

them. Soldiers that are able by sheer skill to plug 
a breech-loading cannon, measure the millionth 
part of an inch in space and the millionth part of 
a second in time, compute the elements of inter- 
lacing curves, invent new formulas for computing 
the orbits of double stars, analyze the gases eX" 
haling from a marsh, recognize any geological 
formation at sight, tell the resistance of every kind 
of a stone, and the tractile power of each of the 
woods, name every plant and give its known 
medicinal properties, transform a flock of sheep or 
a herd of cattle so as to utilize every particle, 
including hoofs, bones, and horns, utilize a herd 
of swine, utilizing everything except the squeal, 
extracting from the muscle and fat marches and 
bayonet charges, campaigns, marksmanship, and 
saber exercise, ideas, purposes, patriotism, char- 
acters, and heroism — such soldiers cannot be fooled 
with gold cord and shoulder straps. Such lions 
cannot be commanded by a stag. An army of 
lions can be led only by the king of lions. There 
is in the Louvre an original inscription made 
450 B. C, which in extreme simplicity tells the 
glory of Athens, saying that "The Athenians fell 
in Cyprus, in Egypt, in Phoenicia, at Halise in 
iEgina, and in Megara in the same year." We 
get some idea of the greatness of this strife when 
we remember that these magnificent American 
soldiers fought over a continent, over territory fifty 



138 



PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 



Vicksburg 
Campaign 



times as large as all the territory touched by the 
Greeks, and held up their flag on all seas, defying 
all the unfriendly nations of the earth. 

The Vicksburg Campaign, exhausting all known 
military science and surpassing all campaigns 
known to history, crowns General Grant as the 
supreme military genius of all time. 

Great rivers are nature's thoroughfares. The 
control of a river decides the sovereignty of the 
land. Rome struggled for two centuries to add 
the Rhine to her vassal rivers. The Elbe, the 
Nile, the Rhine, the Rhone, the Danube, the 
Tigris, the Seine, and finally the Thames, acknowl- 
edged the supremacy of the Tiber. In the bloody 
years of the early sixties the Mississippi was the 
key to the nation's integrity. For an enemy to 
hold that was to bind the jugular vein of the 
Republic. Held, the death of the Republic was 
only a question of time. Opened, the death of 
the Confederacy was only a question of time. 
Vicksburg was the natural and artificial stricture. 
The passage here must be opened. 

Vicksburg was called by Beauregard "the Gi- 
of Vicksburg braltar of America." It is situated on a plateau 
two hundred and fifty feet high, surrounded by 
ravines and marshes and the Mississippi River. 
The strategic campaign of the war, the one su- 
preme campaign of all time, was for its capture. 
The dark days of the war were from January 2, 



Importance 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 139 

1863, after the repulse of Sherman on the Yazoo 
with his Western fighters, to July 4 of the same 
year, when Grant marched into Vicksburg. These 
were days that taxed the faith of public men and 
the patriotism of private citizens. These were the 
days when Grant's supreme military genius and 
magnificent qualities of character were displayed. 
The campaign was destined to dismember the 
Confederacy, and open the Mississippi for national 
uses. It must be done before the end could be 
reached. Done, the end must follow. Grant set 
himself about it in the one campaign which he 
afterward in the quiet review of more perfect 
knowledge pronounced "the campaign which I do 
not now see how to improve.'* 

At a council of war, in which the proposal to Sherman's 
cut loose and go in back of Vicksburg was dis- protest 
cussed, every officer present voted against it. 
General Sherman was so certain that it was a fatal 
blunder that he wrote two pages of protest and 
handed it to Grant. Grant put it in a pigeonhole 
in his desk and went on with the campaign. On 
the 4th of July, after they had entered Vicksburg, 
Sherman came into Grant's tent and General 
Grant handed him the protest, saying, "Here 
is a paper that may interest you. It is nobody 
else's business. I do not care for it." It never 
would have been known had not General Sher- 
man, in his magnanimity, told it himself 



140 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

as a proof of Grant's greatness and magna- 
nimity. 

In the first eighteen days of May, 1863, Grant, 
pushing toward Vicksburg, fought five great bat- 
tles, won five important victories, took forty field 
guns and nearly five thousand prisoners, killed and 
wounded five thousand two hundred of the enemy, 
separated the Southern armies, aggregating sixty 
thousand, captured one fortified capital city, 
destroyed the railroads and bridges, and made the 
investment of Vicksburg complete, and sat down 
to reduce the stronghold by siege. This taxed him 
more than anything he had yet done. The tide 
was running toward the Confederacy. Sherman, 
Dark days with his invincible Western fighters, had been 
checked. The Army of the Potomac was con- 
tinuing its defeats and its experiments in new 
commanders. Ohio and Pennsylvania were terror- 
stricken at the advance of Bragg toward Louis- 
ville. The Confederate armies were advancing 
everywhere. The peace-at-any-price party in the 
North were gaining victories in the elections. 
European writers pronounced the Union destroyed, 
"and mankind relieved from a dangerous and 
pestiferous Republic." France stretched forth a 
helping hand to monarchical ambition in Mexico. 
England and France were bound by agreement to 
raise the blockade, acknowledge the Confederacy, 
and stop the war. They were prevented from the 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 141 

attempt by the courage and fidelity of Alexander II 
of Russia, who answered their proposals, saying, 
"The United States is my friend and has been the 
friend of my fathers; if either England or France, 
or both of them combined, undertake that job, 
every ship and soldier of Russia is at the disposal 
of the United States, and that there may be no 
misunderstanding you tell your master, Napoleon, 
that I issue my orders to-night and my warships 
shall start at once for the harbors of New York 
and San Francisco." 

England was growing rich in building hostile The 
ironclads, and in blockade-running, and in buying FT^^J^^^^ 
Confederate bonds. Ambassadors from Richmond 
scorned our representatives and intrigued against 
them in every court of Europe. The taxes were 
multiplying. The draft was increasing. The 
North was divided. The national credit was nearly 
gone. Gold reached almost three hundred. The 
tropical sun was marching up from the South to 
reinforce the Confederate armies. Surely these 
were weighty reasons for the speedy capture of 
Vicksburg. No mortal can measure the pressure 
on Grant as he bent his energies to the task in 
hand. Pemberton, with his brave warriors inside 
this Gibraltar, menaced him in front. The wise 
and skillful Johnston, with an increasing host of 
forty thousand strong, threatened his rear. In- 
trenched on both sides against two powerful 



142 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

armies, in the heart of an enemy's country, he 
went patiently about the work. Night and day 
The siege the Operations of the siege were pushed. Parallels 
and trenches were opened at every available point, 
batteries were planted, heavy guns from the fleet 
were borrowed and mounted on land duty, roads 
were made, siege materials were prepared, mines 
were sunk, and towers for sharpshooters were 
built. Across the gulches, and through the ravines, 
and round the hillsides, and up to the very walls, 
day by day and night by night, inch by inch, the 
encircling lines of burnished steel and blazing 
muzzles made their remorseless way. Pressed by 
the awful gravity of the situation, slandered and 
maligned by open and concealed foes in the North, 
distrusted by nearly all in Washington save Lin- 
coln — this unwavering man, underfed, underslept, 
sleeping at times on a torn cot so he had to spread 
his limbs apart to rest them on the beams of the 
cot, dressed like a common soldier, toiling in the 
mud and rain — this desperate, purposed, uncom- 
plaining, silent man, pushed his way up to the very 
gates of Vicksburg, and on July 4, 1863, pushed 
them open, never again to be closed against the 
Stars and Stripes. 
Greatness This campaign, exhausting all the inventions 

of the victory ^^i^ appliances of the most perfect war science, 
has had no equal, and, standing alone, would 
stamp its author as a military genius of the high- 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 143 

est order. It was in acknowledgment of "the 
almost inestimable service done" by Grant for "the 
country" in this campaign that Lincoln wrote that 
letter in which he said, "When you turned north- 
ward, east of the Big Black, I feared it was a 
mistake. I now wish to make a personal acknowl- 
edgment that you were right and I was wrong." 
These two mightiest men, with the greatest task of 
all time, never having seen each other's faces, with 
half a continent between them, struggling for one 
cause, stand hand in hand, brothers in the blood 
of greatness: the one tall, looking over the bulge 
of the centuries; the other compact, lifting the 
world. It was at a reception in the White House, 
after Vicksburg, and after Grant had been called 
East to take command of all the armies, that they 
first met. Lincoln was shaking hands with the 
passing and pressing throng of visitors, when look- 
ing over to the door he saw General Grant come 
in. Instantly he said, "There is General Grant," 
and pushing through the crowd and reaching over 
some of the people caught Grant's hand. They 
shook in silence. Then Lincoln said, "God knows 
that you are welcome." No flight of ages can ever 
separate them. 

General Sherman was asked by General Rusling, Sherman's 
"Why is it that you and Sheridan are always view of Grant 
talking about what a great man General Grant is ? 
The people think that you and Sheridan are 



144 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

great men." General Sherman replied, *'The chief 
reason is because it is so. He is the only great 
military genius that the war developed. I know 
more about books than Grant does. I know more 
about men and about society than Grant does. I 
know what the books teach about fighting. I can 
put two hundred thousand men onto the field, 
fight them and take them off again, and that is 
not an easy task. But Grant has the infallible 
instinct of victory. I mean this, for instance: 
At Mission Ridge I commanded our right. I re- 
ceived an order to strike the rebel left. I was so 
certain that it was a blunder that I sent an aide 
to ask General Grant if he issued the order. The 
aide came back at the top of his speed, with the 
order to strike quick and hard. I put the men 
upon a double-quick and went against the enemy. 
We were thrown back like a rubber ball from a 
stone wall. As we picked ourselves up, under 
cover of a little wood, I received another order to 
strike again, hard as I could. Again we ran up 
against them and were dashed to pieces with heavy 
loss. Again picking ourselves up, the third order 
came to strike as hard as I could. Again we were 
thrown down, when rallying again I saw the main 
army under Grant moving on the rebel center. 
Now no book, no scout, could tell him that these 
three charges had diverted the rebel reserves and 
weakened the rebel center. Only his genius, his 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 145 

instinct of victory, could teach him that. You can 
see the same genius at Shiloh. Grant came to my 
tent at the close of the first day, about ten o'clock, 
and said, 'General Sherman, what do you think of 
this day's work ?' I said, 'We have been roughly 
handled.' Grant replied, 'Yes, but you must re- 
member that we have not been idle.' Sherman 
said, 'That is the difference between us. I saw 
what we had suffered, but not what we had in- 
flicted. Grant saw both.' Grant said, 'What 
about to-morrow.^' I said, *I will tell you to- 
morrow night.' Grant said, 'I will tell you now. 
Look at our position, with the Tennessee River 
behind us, with an impassable ravine on one flank 
and the gunboats on the other; we are accessible 
only in front. To-morrow turns on who is first 
in the field.' Going out of the tent, he said, 
'Beauregard will have to get up early if he is in 
the saddle before I am.' At twelve o'clock I 
received orders to put the troops in motion. Grant 
alone has the infallible instinct of victory. Again 
to illustrate what I mean: Sheridan and I will 
talk. I will plan a campaign and Sheridan will 
say, 'That is good. I can fight that out success- 
fully.' Then I will make another plan. This he 
will also approve. So for a dozen different plans. 
But we do not know which is best. General Grant 
will sit by and listen and say nothing. We appeal 
to him. He will touch one or two of them at 



146 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

points, perhaps combine two of them. Then we 
will wonder that we ever thought of any other. 
General Grant is the only great military genius 
developed by the war." Then Rusling said, 
"Your march to the sea was a great campaign and 
will carry your name for all time." Sherman 
replied, "Tell me who commanded any of Alex- 
ander's divisions, if you can. The rest of us will 
drop through the sieve and be forgotten in a thou- 
sand or two thousand years. But Grant will go 
up and take his seat by the side of Napoleon and 
Wellington and Hannibal and Alexander. Once I 
was in the first class. It was at West Point. One 
day there appeared among the names of the cadets 
that of U. S. Grant. That cadet has taken and 
filled the first class." 
Estimates Chattanooga demonstrated his fertility in re- 

by Confed- sourccs. Alexander H. Stephens, Vice-President of 
the Confederacy, said after the battle, "We have 
underrated General Grant. His achievements sur- 
pass anything done by Hannibal or Napoleon 
crossing into Italy." Jefferson Davis said, "The 
failure at Chattanooga was the worst calamity that 
had befallen the Confederacy. It broke the spirit 
of the South and the courage of the Southern 
armies more than any other event." 

When I first visited Rome I spent five days 
studying that greatest of all buildings. Saint Peter's, 
and came to some realization of its perfect finish. 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 147 

exhausting the power of all arts, and of its vast 
proportions. When I first went to this cathedral, 
I drove over to the paved plateau in front of the Comparison 
church. That plateau, partly embraced within two ^*^ f^^^^ 
vast colonnades supporting heroic statues, stretch- 
ing out like arms as if to embrace the world, con- 
tains many acres. Here is a Needle. Some pope 
borrowed it from Egypt. There is a vast fountain, 
yonder another. By these I went up the steps into 
the vestibule. Here I stopped to measure, with 
my eye, the front. That vestibule contains as 
many cubic feet as several ordinary churches put 
together. There is Saint George and the Dragon 
in bronze, huge size, on the steps going up into 
the eleven hundred rooms of the Vatican. Here is 
a little door like a rat-hole, curtained with a padded 
sole-leather curtain ; a beggar lifted the corner, and 
I stepped in. The first instant I started. Why! 
I have come through the wrong door! I am out 
of doors! There is a little park two blocks away 
where the sun shines! But no, that is the light 
from the dome away yonder. I am in the church. 
Here I stand in the midst of these wonders. On 
a column yonder to the right are two marble 
cherubs, apparently about two and a half feet tall, 
holding a shell filled with holy water. I walked 
over to them. I was amazed. The cherubs are 
eleven feet tall if straightened up. I began to feel 
the vastness of Saint Peter's. The long lines of 



148 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

columns seemed of proper size. After some days 
I measured one of the four columns that support 
the dome. I was amazed to find them seventy-two 
feet on a side, not quite square. The dome is 
nearly five hundred feet high. On the roof of the 
cathedral live over forty families, an entire village, 
employed in keeping the building in order. The 
immense space accommodates fifty-two thousand 
worshipers at once. Every inch of this vast temple 
has been touched by the hand of genius. Here is 
a mosaic, showing the conversion of Christiana. 
There are the lions of Can ova," supporting a pope's 
tomb. Yonder is another pope's face in bas-relief. 
Not a spot but speaks of the mighty dead. The 
great founders of their orders stand in chiseled 
marble up against the sides of these columns. It 
slowly dawned upon me, how great this temple, and 
how great the architect, Michael Angelo, and what 
a marvel he wrought when, as he promised, he 
"hung the Pantheon between the heavens and the 
earth"! I thought I had seen all I could com- 
prehend of one man. My guide said, "Come away 
and see Michael Angelo's statues — his Moses, his 
David, and his Christ." I said, "No, I have seen 
enough of Michael Angelo." But I went. I knew 
I would. I looked at his David and studied it. 
I said, "If I had been Goliath that man would 
never have gotten me. I would have run." I 
studied his Moses. It awed me. I felt as Angelo 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 149 

himself did after he had finished it. He struck it 
on the knee and said, "Moses, why don't you 
speak?" Then I saw and studied his Christ. At 
first I felt its majesty; then it drew me, and I 
wanted to bow at its feet. It bade me come. To 
me nothing surpassed these statues. The sculptor 
stands by the side of the architect. The hand 
that chiseled these majestic figures was no feebler 
than the hand that hung up the dome of the temple, 
conceived alike in the brain of a Titan and executed 
with the touch of inspired genius. It is with such 
feelings that I turn from my subject. General 
Grant, to take a hurried glance at President Grant, 
change my subject from General Grant to Grant. 

As it is always diflficult to do a prosperous Difficulties 
business on a declining market, so it was diflficult ^^!" ^^ ^^' 

, . . . , , ,. . ministration 

to make a brilliant administration on the declining as president 
feelings that followed the war. The pendulum had 
swung in the early sixties to one extreme. It had 
to swing back again. The vast expenditures of 
millions every day, the unnumbered contracts that 
furnished work and wealth and temptations, had 
engendered a spirit of gain equal to the tide of 
fierce passions that had swept everything along. 
Grant bent his great energies to the work of re- 
trenchment and steady living. Within a few days 
after the surrender, before all the rebel armies 
were disbanded and long before the prisoners had 
reached their homes, Grant had mustered out the 



150 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

Union soldiers by the hundred thousand, and dis- 
posed of much of the war material available for 
the uses of peace, thus stopping the increase of 
the national debt. A little later this purpose 
characterized his administration. His absolute 
honesty and integrity, like a rock in a rapid river, 
made a disturbance in the smooth stream of selfish- 
ness that had possessed the country in the adminis- 
tration of President Johnson. While the frauds 
and peculations were only a small per cent of the 
losses in the same way by the principal civilized 
governments, in proportion to the funds handled, 
their rebuke and punishment made them conspic- 
uous. This opened wide the flood gates and 
introduced the most malicious and monumental 
system of slander and crimination that ever swept 
over the country. Silent and stolid as on the field 
of battle, the President showed himself as spotless 
as he was great, as wise as a statesman as he had 
been mighty as a soldier. The South emulated the 
North in praising him, and even England said, 
"No man has stained the President's honor or 
questioned his nobility." 
National We must measure an administration as we do 

"'"ty a man, by the things achieved. By this rule. 

Grant's administration puts on vast proportions. 
The chiefest and most difficult thing to be done 
was to fuse into unity the parts of the nation so 
long in antipathies and so recently in fiercest con- 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 151 

flict. Force can crush a foe, but it is the highest 
achievement of man's or God's government to 
soften and win conquered hearts. The greatest 
need of the nation, beyond every other considera- 
tion, was to make one nation out of the pieces that 
had been hammered together by the strokes of war. 
The highest achievement of statesmanship is to 
secure this unity. History furnishes but a few 
examples in which this has been done in the long 
centuries. England has finally after centuries got- 
ten her Red and White Roses to grow in the same 
garden. Rome went to pieces, split by the feuds 
of the great families. The Greek states quarreled, 
fought, and died, subjugated by foreign powers. 
But Grant fought with so heavy a hand and so 
generous a heart that in half a decade the South 
was first to nominate him as their first choice for 
President, and in half a generation the currents 
of national life flowed freely throughout the whole 
body politic. It required great statesmanship to 
gain this most important victory of peace. 

Next after fusing the national life comes the National 
restoration of the national credit. An administra- ^ 
tion that could pass through a widespread, deep, 
and protracted financial depression and panic, and 
continue to pay off the national debt by the hun- 
dred millions and bring the nation's credit up to 
par, is no weak administration. The speedy 
resumption of specie payment made ready by 



152 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

Grant's administration is honor enough for one 
man; as Webster said of Hamilton, "He touched 
the dead corpse of Public Credit, and it sprung 
upon its feet." 

The hand of the President that inaugurated and 
carried to successful operation the peace policy 
concerning the Indians is as strong as the General 
that maintained the government to have a policy. 
Cuba It needs no argument to-day to show the wisdom 

of Grant's policy toward Cuba. He was in advance 
of the people, and we now see that he was wiser. 
He advised Congress to purchase Cuba, and his 
political antagonists assaulted this item of his policy 
with such vigor that it carried away his friends 
with it, and both parties seemed to vie with each 
other in abusing the President for his suggestion. 
Grant said, "Well, if you don't want to buy it, you 
can wait and see," and we did see. 

It was no mean measure of greatness to so be- 
friend and strengthen our disturbed neighbor, 
Mexico, as to make her a faithful friend. 
Alabama What shall I Say of the Treaty of Washington, 

claims \)y which the "Alabama claims" were settled by 

the peaceful processes of arbitration ? He spoke to 
the troubled sea of international passions, saying, 
"Peace, be still," and all the nations heard his voice 
and obeyed. 

With purity and temperance for the White 
House, with honesty and integrity for his adminis- 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 153 

tration, with national honor and national credit at 
par, with specie payment for all debts, with peace 
for the poor Indians, with friendship for Mexico 
and hope for Cuba, and the Treaty of Washington 
arbitrating the "Alabama claims" for England, he 
will be honored as a great President. The sculptor 
will stand by the side of the architect, the President 
by the side of the General. 

Grant had all the great elements of a great Great 
character. The day of criticism upon Grant is ^^^aracter 
passed. Disraeli said, "Critics are usually men who 
have failed in literature"; so the men who criticise 
Grant are usually members of the Home Guards, 
of whom one says, "Home Guards, invincible in 
peace, and invisible in war!" 

Grant had a clear, strong, frictionless mind. Mastered 
He had a close and accurate observation of all the ^^*^^ 
details of a case. At Donelson under-officers were 
nervous that he said nothing about the situation. 
But when the moment came to act, he knew where 
every regiment and cannon could be found, every 
road that could be used, every bridge that could 
be trusted, and he issued his orders with the most 
minute details. He wrote them with no erasures 
or corrections, as one writes that which he has 
mastered. Sherman says, "No commanding gen- 
eral ever went more into the details of his work 
than Grant. The Vicksburg campaign was his, 
not only in its grand conception and projection, 



154 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

but also in its minute details. I preserve many 
of his orders in his own handwriting, directing the 
various movements and expeditions, designating 
how many men, what tools, and how many, and 
what rations should be taken." 

He had a wide and just comprehension of the 
undertaking set before him. The great plan that 
embraced every soldier, took in every army, and 
covered the continent and the surrounding seas, 
so that all faces were turned upon one point, all 
the forces like so many revolving grindstones 
turned round so as constantly to wear away the 
power of the Confederacy — this gigantic plan was 
the product of a great mind. 
His memory His memory was faithful and exact, furnishing 
ready material for the perfection of his plans. On 
the field of Shiloh he rode by where two private 
soldiers were eating their rations. He stopped and 
said, "Boys, have you any to spare ?'' They said, 
"Yes, General, you are welcome." He dismounted, 
sat down, and shared their meal. One of those 
men after the war joined the Genesee Conference. 
In the early eighties, nearly twenty years after 
Shiloh, Grant was to pass through the city where 
this Conference was in session. The Conference 
took a recess and went down to the train to extend 
their greetings to Grant. As the train stopped, 
this old soldier mounted the steps; just then Gen- 
e:ral Grant opened the car door and steppfdd upt>n 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 155 

the platform. Immediately he extended his hand, 
saying, "McKenzie, do you remember dividing your 
rations with me at Shiloh ?" Twenty years of time 
with a great life full of great work, and the garb of 
a minister, did not prevent Grant's recalling the 
private soldier whom he had met on the field of 
Shiloh. 

I said to him one day, "General Grant, I have 
heard that at your visit in Colorado a driver ran 
his horses down the mountain to stir your nerves, 
and said after the drive, *I did all I dared, but I 
could not stir Grant's nerves.' Is there any truth 
in that story .P" He said, "I do not recall any 
peril in the ride, but I do recall this: The leaders 
on the coach were a span of horses that had carried 
me over that road twelve years before, and I re- 
membered them. I think that was good after all 
the things that had come to crowd them out. 
Don't you ?" I thought so too. 

Nothing more surprised the nation and the world Speeches 
in this simple, plain man than his wondrous 
speeches and productions. I found him to be a 
most delightful, instructive^ and fascinating con- 
versationalist, with the widest and most accurate 
information, from the text-books of the public 
schools to the interior policies of foreign cabinets. 
In his later years he was undoubtedly the best 
informed man in the world. He met every occa- 
sion, all the world round, with exactly the right 



156 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

speech and appropriate action. Smalley, of the 
Tribune, says, *T never heard a more perfect 
speech of its kind than his Guild Hall speech. He 
speaks everywhere, yet seldom repeats himself. His 
style is terse, clear, and in the best English." 

His letters to his subordinate commanders are 
models of simplicity and clearness. There are no 
places for questions. No man of our time, not 
even President Lincoln, has coined more ringing 
sentences, that must pass current as long as the 
English language is spoken. Who can forget his 
reply to General Buckner, at Donelson, *'No terms 
other than unconditional surrender can be ac- 
cepted. I propose to move immediately upon your 
works"; his telegram to Stanton, from Spottsyl- 
vania, *T propose to fight it out on this line if it 
takes all summer"; his telegram while President 
to an officer in New Orleans, who was reporting 
in detail every order he gave, rings like the old 
orders — "Put down the rebellion, and report after- 
ward." What can be stronger than, *'Let no 
guilty man escape" ? We remember his statement 
during one of his visits to the South, when the 
colored people crowded to see him, and wanted to 
touch him. The guards kept them back. Grant 
said, *'Let them come; where I am they can come." 
We shall not forget the benediction at the end of 
his inaugural, "Let us have peace." He had a 
great frictionless mind. . 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 157 

Grant embodied firmness. He could not be Firmness 
other than firm with his clear convictions of duty, 
and with his stout, fighting Scotch blood, which had 
been marching for five hundred years under the 
old clan motto, "Stand fast, stand firm, stand 
sure." Those old Scotch chiefs asserted them- 
selves whenever Ulysses got into the thick of the 
battle and the crisis threatened to turn the wrong 
way. Then he was more resolute and unwavering 
than ever. It gave supreme quietness to his pur- 
pose. He could stand in the face of the most 
terrible storm of death and never show the slightest 
concern. He had no thought of giving up. Mrs. 
Grant was asked during the Richmond campaign, 
*'Do you think General Grant will take Rich- 
mond.^" She replied, 'T think so. He is a very 
determined man." 

This firmness, guided by his intelligence, made 
him self-reliant. This is essential to manhood. 
No man ever is very strong who is not self-poised. 
At Belmont, when an oflScer, in alarm, ran to him 
saying, "General, we are surrounded," he reassured 
all by saying, "Then we will cut our way out as 
we cut our way in." After Belmont, though an 
unknown Brigadier, he telegraphed to Halleck, 
"With permission, I will take and hold Fort 
Henry." After tardy permission came he tele- 
graphed to Halleck, "Fort Henry is ours. I shall 
take and destroy Fort Donelson on the eighth." 



158 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

After the battle of Five Forks, Grant, wrapped 
in his blue overcoat, sat out in front of his tent, 
awaiting news from Sheridan. Two or three staff 
officers sat with him in the wet woods. Presently a 
messenger from Sheridan said, "Five Forks is 
won!" Grant listened, went alone into his tent, 
wrote an order, sent away an orderly, and, coming 
out, sat down and after a little remarked quietly, 
*T have ordered an attack all along the line.'* 
His whole career is full of these displays of his 
greatness. That first terrible day in the Wilderness 
the Union troops fought under great disadvantage. 
It is said that ten thousand men were killed in 
fifteen minutes. It was on haunted ground. For 
years no Union man could walk that way without 
running. Defeat was the unbroken history. Grant 
sat with his back to a tree and his face to a cigar. 
A scout ran up to him, saying, *'The right is turned 
and in full retreat." Grant took out his cigar just 
long enough to say, "I don't believe it." Presently 
the fugitives came running by. Grant got up, 
walked down to the edge of the running current, 
taking that sphinxlike and impenetrable face with 
him, and said, "Boys, you can run if you want to 
for exercise, but you have got to fight it out here 
and now. You can't get over the river." Then 
he went back and sat down and smoked and let 
them run. An aide on his staff, whom I well knew 
as a member of one of our New York chui'ches. 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 169 

said to me, "I came up at this time and said, 'Gen- 
eral Grant, General Lee is in your rear.* He 
looked up quietly and said, "Well, then I am in 
his rear, am I not ?' " History has no better pictures 
of power. 

At midnight that night a council of war was Acted on own 
called. Grant, beginning with the lowest in rank, i"^g°^«ot 
asked each man, "What shall we do next .^" Every 
oflficer advised retreat upon the works about Wash- 
ington. Grant was silent. After all had spoken. 
Grant handed each a written order, with instruc- 
tions to go to their own headquarters and read it. 
Each found that Grant had ordered an advance by 
the left flank. There was in the darkness of that 
terrible night but one man that could see the way 
out, and that was Grant. There was but one will 
that did not waver in the universal gloom and 
despair, and that was Grant's will. There went 
out from that gloomy tent only one purpose that 
carried the fate of the Republic in its death struggle, 
and that was the purpose of Grant. 

Grant's supreme quality was his integrity. This integrity 
was under and through all his other gifts. He 
was all the way through alike. You might dissect 
him and you could find no soft spots. As a boy, 
he was noted for his integrity. Tradition says his 
father sent him to buy a horse, which the boy 
greatly desired. The father told him to offer fifty 
dollars for the horse, but if that would not buy 



160 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

him he might give sixty dollars. The man, an 
experienced horse-trader, asked him, "What did 
your father say you might give for the horse?" 
He told him the fact: "I can offer fifty dollars, and 
if necessary I may pay sixty." The man, anxious 
to sell, was pleased to get this information, and 
said, *T could not think of selling him for less than 
sixty dollars." The boy said, "I am sorry. I 
wanted the horse, but I do not think he is worth 
more than fifty dollars, and so I can't buy him. 
Good day." The jockey was disappointed. The 
boy and the truth came out ahead. 

His deep integrity made Grant averse to much 
reliance upon strategy, and strategy did not fit the 
Civil War. It was a war for pounding, wearing, 
abrading. Strategy is good against the Chinese. 
The Chinese gunboats turn with the tide. They 
carry but one gun, and that stationary in the stern 
of the boat, so that half of the time the gun is 
pointed up the river and half the time down, and 
can never be changed. The English, seeing this, 
could exercise strategy and come upon them when 
the tide turned them the wrong way. I saw a 
fort at Taku to guard the entrance to the Pei-ho. 
The guns were incapable of being turned about. 
The English used strategy and landed two or three 
miles below and marched up in the rear of this 
fort and took it without ever facing the mounted 
cannon. The Chinese complained that the English 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 161 

did not fight fairly — that they ought to have come 
up in front of their fort and given them a fair 
chance to shoot them. Strategy is useful against 
such a foe. But with Americans, commanded as 
these armies were, strategy did not count. It 
could never tire out Lee. Only one thing could 
subdue the South, and that was to wear them out. 
You cannot whip Americans. You can only kill 
them. The Southern armies had to be destroyed. 
So Grant comprehended the situation, and he went 
at his task with one intent, to wear them out. It 
is a proof of his greatness that he comprehended 
the strife from the beginning. He said to General 
Meigs, "I do not believe in strategy, in the popular 
understanding of the term; I simply use it to get 
up to the enemy as quietly and closely as possible, 
with as little loss as possible, then 'Up guards 
and at them!' " When he did not wish to tell any- 
thing he did not tell something else; he simply kept 
silent. He was always direct. 

In the White House Grant was busy. A stranger Wanted the 
called. The man on duty in the hall, knowing truth 
that Grant was busy, said to the servant at the 
door, *'Tell the gentleman that the President is 
out." Grant overheard it and said, *'No, don't 
tell him that. Tell him I am engaged and must be 
excused. I never lie for myself, and I do not 
want anybody to lie for me." 

He wanted the truth told him and honored it. 



162 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

During his second term considerable public feeling 
was worked up over the third term. Some men 
really feared it. A great man whom I knew — 
Bishop Simpson — feared it much, and said to me 
at Long Branch, "Only one thing can prevent 
Grant's becoming Dictator. We have no man to 
match him. He has never been defeated in any- 
thing. He has no counselors. He makes his plans 
and reveals them by their success. The only 
thing that can prevent his being Dictator will be 
in the fact that he does not want to be, if that be 
true." The influence of this conversation was still 
upon me when I called upon President Grant. 
I had preached the day before on "Economy of 
Power," illustrated by the waste in persecutions, 
taken from the history of the Roman Catholic 
Church. Grant was present. Leading me across 
the room till he came to the door of another room, 
he let go my hand and said, "Secretary Borie, 
come out here." Secretary Borie came out, and 
the President said, "Dr. Fowler, I have pleasure 
in introducing to you my Roman Catholic friend. 
Secretary Borie, who was in the pew with me 
yesterday." This was a close quarter, but not one 
in which a man could wisely show the white 
feather. I took Secretary Borie's hand and said, 
"Secretary, I am glad to see you, and I am also 
glad that you got the truth once at least." Secre- 
tary Borie said, "The President is facetious. I 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 163 

was raised in that communion. Some members of 
the family are still there. But I believe every word 
you said, and I regard the hierarchy of Rome as 
the greatest enemy of the Republic.'* This made 
my escape from that tight place easy. A friend 
who was with me asked him, "President Grant, 
how about the third term T* Grant replied, "The 
third term is a question of the future." I thought, 
"Men about him want oflfices and might tell him 
anything. I do not want anything. This may be 
a good time to say some plain truths." So I said, 
"President Grant, pardon me, but I think the 
people imagine that the Constitution prohibits a 
third term." He said, "I think they probably do 
think so, but Congress has that in hand; next term 
is the long term. They can fix that matter if they 
wish to." I said, "I do not think Congress can 
control that matter. The man is not born that can 
be elected the third time." He said very quietly, 
"It takes a very wise man to tell what can be done 
in the future." I said, "Yes, in detail, but some 
things are evident. I come from among the people 
over in the Great Valley, and I must say that I 
am sure the people would trample out their dearest 
idol if he should undertake it." When this inter- 
view was ended I thought that it might be my 
last interview with him. But it was not. After 
that he treated me with the utmost consideration. 
He wanted men to tell him the truth. 



164 



PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 



Merely 
expedient 
things 
rejected 



Surrendered 
property 



He said to me once late in life that he never 
tried but once in his life to do an expedient thing, 
for the sake of party, against his judgment. That 
was concerning the Inflation Bill. He wrote a 
message trying to satisfy himself that it was right 
to sign it, and so save the Republican Party in 
the West. All his Western friends were urgent, 
but he could not satisfy his convictions; so he 
wrote another message vetoing the bill. This abso- 
lute integrity, absolute honesty, absolute loyalty to 
the convictions of duty, cannot be overemphasized. 

I know of no sublimer picture than that of 
General Grant, advanced in years, having been 
betrayed by friends, handing over his fortune, and 
his home, with the treasures and gifts of a grateful 
world, to a man who could not possibly need them, 
simply because it was honest. It is one of the 
saddest pictures in history. Look at him. Old, 
war-worn, bidding farewell to his home and its 
many tokens and mementos of affection and honor, 
gathered from all the world, from princes, and 
kings, and emperors, and czars. See him stand 
before the portrait of his only daughter, taking 
his last look, with the tears running down his 
cheeks, then taking his wife on his arm and walking 
with her again down into poverty, and there sitting 
down with a bandage about his aching head, and 
a horrible and mortal disease clutching his throat, 
patiently, uncomplainingly, with his pen earning 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 165 

daily bread for his family. My heart feels a great 
ache when I look at him who had saved us all when 
we were bankrupt in treasure and in leaders, and 
see him thus beset by woes and wants. But I am 
reconciled to the strange providence when I see the 
"form of the Fourth" in the furnace, and see that 
he has added to all his other gifts to us and our 
children this magnificent example of honesty and 
his "Memoirs." History furnishes no sublimer 
picture. General Grant was as true a man as ever 
lived. 

It is refreshing to study this man's patriotism. Patriotism 
He offered his services to the government in 
Springfield over and over again, only to have them 
refused. At last he was granted a place at a 
clerk's desk, and rejoiced that he was doing some- 
thing for the defense of the country. After Shiloh 
the credit of the victory was given to a subordinate 
officer; he was stripped of all command, and prac- 
tically put under arrest. Yet he did what he 
could to aid his superiors. After he was again 
restored to the service he wrote General Halleck, 
*'I will again assume command, and give every 
effort for the success of the cause. Under the 
worst circumstances I would do the same." His 
soul burned with unabating zeal for the country. 
When starting on his journey around the world he 
said, "I believe firmly that if our country ever 
comes into trial again, young men will spring up 



166 



PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 



common 
soldier 



equal to the occasion, and if one falls there will 
be another to take his place." Again he said, *'If 
our country could be saved or ruined by the 
efforts of one man, we should not have a country. 
What saved the Union was the coming forward of 
the young men of the nation. They came from 
their homes and their fields as they did in the 
time of the Revolution, giving everything to the 
country." 
Honored the No man morc clearly than General Grant saw 
the supreme figure of the war — the common soldier. 
He has dedicated his "Memoirs" "To the Amer- 
ican soldier and sailor." As w^e look upon the 
luminous history of this struggle the first form 
that comes out of the smoke of battle and rises in 
the chariot of fire before our weeping eyes is that 
supreme patriot, the common soldier, who at the 
first tap of the war drum sprang from the couch 
of his ease and the home of his comfort, armed 
amid the gathering darkness of impending peril, 
took a hasty farewell of his wife and loved ones, 
and went forth to hunt for masked batteries in the 
darkness, and to die, if need be, rather than sur- 
vive his imperiled liberties; who actually bared his 
bosom to storms of iron and rows of glistening 
steel; who did press over the breastworks and rush 
across slippery pontoon and stand mute under 
hostile guns; who did actually stand in death's 
highway that the Republic might be saved. We 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 167 

do see, first of all, and, in the impartial judgment 
of infinite equity, above all, the supreme patriot of 
the war — the common soldier. Honor to whom 
honor is due. Grant said, "The humblest soldier 
who carried a musket is entitled to as much credit 
for the result of the war as those who were in 
command." 

Grant had an almost preternatural endurance. Endurance 
He could outride any of his officers. He never 
tired out. General Sheridan once said to me, *T 
do not deserve much credit for my success. Look 
at me. I have large chest, small limbs, small 
hands and feet; no great demand for support; 
plenty of blood. I can ride twenty-four or thirty- 
six consecutive hours without the slightest fatigue. 
I was always at my best. I ought to win." Grant 
had this advantage. This physical endurance 
shadowed forth another type of endurance, his 
endurance of assaults and misrepresentations. He 
is the best abused man in American history. He 
seems to have marched straight up to the highest 
positions without a single faltering step, and he 
did. But it was in spite of the most bitter and 
constant and malicious detractions. He advanced 
as the ocean steamer does, in spite of the tides 
and storms. Every step of his way was gained 
in spite of the bitter opposition from men who 
ought to have helped him. After Fort Donelson 
his chief gave the credit to an inferior officer. 



168 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

recommended an unknown man for promotion, re- 
moved Grant from his command, and put him, 
practically, under arrest. After Corinth, where he 
defeated Johnson and Beauregard, and drove back 
the Confederate advance in the West, he was 
neglected, criticised, maligned. Through the long 
campaign against Vicksburg every effort was made 
to supersede him. This would have been done 
but for the hard sense of President Lincoln, who 
said, "I rather like the man; he is the only chap 
that I have found that is doing what I sent him 
out to do, and I guess we'll try him a little longer.'* 
Through all his public life he was slandered and 
maligned almost beyond human endurance. Yet, 
through it all, he remained the same patient, 
silent, magnanimous, patriotic man. 

I once asked him, "Why do you endure so 
silently.? The people will believe what you say.'* 
He replied, "Perhaps my habit of silence was con- 
firmed if it needed confirming — it is naturally 
strong — ^more by a story told me by Henry Clay 
than by anything else. Clay said, 'The Whigs 
were anxious to carry Kentucky, to secure my 
reelection to the United States Senate. A certain 
mountain district was needed, so my friends per- 
suaded an old planter, a high-minded, honorable 
man, who had never touched public life, to accept 
the nomination for the Legislature, with the 
promise that he should have nothing to do with 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 169 

the campaign. All went well till a short time be- 
fore election, when a company of Whigs called on 
this old planter and told him that his opponents 
were saying that "when you gather in your hogs 
in the fall you are not quite careful enough to 
gather in only your own." "What! do they accuse 
me of stealing hogs?" "Well, not exactly; but 
that you are not careful enough." "It is a base 
lie." "Yes, we know that; but the voters at the 
other end of the district do not know it." "Well, 
I will go and tell them"; and so he did. He spent 
the rest of the campaign telling them that he 
didn't steal hogs.' " Grant asked Clay, "How did 
it come out.^" Clay said, "O, the Democrats 
carried the district by about the usual majority. 
They proved it on him." Grant added, "This 
story has greatly affected my political life. Sup- 
pose I deny their falsehoods; it will not take long 
to find witnesses to swear to them. Then the case 
apparently goes to the public on the evidence. 
No, I do not fear falsehoods, but if in these things 
they told the truth about me I would be alarmed 
and helpless." 

Grant had that supreme quality so necessary to Personal 
the soldier — courage. He would sit and write his courage 
dispatches with shells bursting over his head 
within a few feet of him and never look up. Sir 
Francis Drake was playing a game of bowl at 
Plymouth, when a Scotch privateer announced the 



170 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

coming of the Spanish Armada. There was a 
general hurrying to the boats and rapid orders for 
action. But Drake said, *'Hold, there is time to 
finish this game and then whip the Spanish." 
Grant, walking about in the thickest of that 
dreadful slaughter at Donelson, with his cigar in 
his hand, was as cool. When France attacked 
Germany, and a messenger awoke Von Moltke 
and told him the French had declared war, he 
said, "The maps of France are in the second 
alcove, third drawer,'* then turned over and went 
to sleep again. Ney, about to lead a charge at 
Waterloo, looked down and saw his legs trembling. 
He said, "Shake now, will you, old legs? You 
would shake worse than that if you knew where 
I am going to take you." Grant had that courage 
with two modifications — first, his legs would not 
shake; second, he would have remained silent. 
The four characters known to history that were 
strangers to fear were Lord Nelson, Marshal Ney, 
John Brown, and General Grant. 
Magnanimity General Grant abounded in magnanimity. He 
writes to Sherman, *T have received your very 
kind letter in which you say you would decline 
or are opposed to promotion. No one would be 
more pleased at your advancement than I. If you 
should be placed in my position, and I subordinate, 
it would not change our personal relations in the 
least. I would make the same exertions to support 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 171 

you that you have ever done to support me, and 
I would do all in my power to make our cause 
win, while some would not cooperate because they 
were outranked." 

Again General Grant writes to General Sherman, Correspond- 
**I wish to express my thanks to you and Mac- |?*^''^JJ* 
Pherson as the men to whom above all others I 
feel indebted for whatever I have had of success. 
How far your execution entitled you to the reward 
I am receiving you cannot know as well as I do. 
I feel all the gratitude this letter would express, 
giving it the most flattering construction." To 
this letter Sherman replied, "You do yourself 
injustice and us too much honor in assigning to us 
so large a share of the merits which have led to 
your high advancement. You showed the same 
qualities at Donelson and Shiloh without our in- 
fluence. You are now Washington's legitimate 
successor, and occupy a position of almost dan- 
gerous elevation. But if you can continue as 
heretofore to be yourself, simple, honest, and 
unpretending, you will enjoy through life the re- 
spect and love of friends and the homage of 
millions of human beings. I believe you are as 
brave, patriotic, and just as the great prototype, 
Washington; as unselfish, kind-hearted, and honest 
as a man should be; but the chief characteristic 
in your nature is the simple faith in success you 
have always manifested, which I can liken to 



172 



PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 



Favored 
promotion 
of others 



Considerate 
to the 
vanquished 



nothing else than the faith of a Christian in his 
Saviour. This faith gave you victory at Shiloh 
and Vicksburg. Also, when you have completed 
your best preparations, you go into battle without 
hesitation, as at Chattanooga — no doubt, no re- 
serve — and I tell you that it was this that made 
us act with confidence. I knew wherever I was 
you thought of me, and if I got into a tight place 
you would come to me, if alive. Even in the 
seceded States your word now would go further 
than a President's proclamation or an Act of 
Congress." 

Mr. Blaine, at the head of a committee of Con- 
gress, waited upon General Grant after his election 
to the Presidency and asked his consent to a 
proposition to give him a furlough for four years 
so he could retain his rank as General and avoid 
the question of promoting anyone else to it. 
General Grant peremptorily refused, saying, *T 
would feel mean to consent to any plan that would 
prevent other officers from receiving the promo- 
tion and honors they have earned as honestly as 
I have earned mine." 

General Grant under every test showed the 
finest qualities of human nature. God mixed him 
out of the best clay, and he was improved by 
every successive mixing. A Confederate officer 
says, *'We owe to General Grant more than re- 
spect. We ought to love him for the consideration 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 173 

with which he treated us." A distinguished mem- 
ber of the English aristocracy says, *' Grant must 
be of the finest and gentlest nature to give such 
terms to Lee and to remain always so simple and 
modest." At Appomattox there was the simplest 
and gentlest treatment of the vanquished. There 
was no posturing for historical effect. No sword 
was demanded from Lee. When the overjoyed 
Union soldiers, rejoicing that the war was ended, 
that the Union was safe, and that their peaceful 
homes were in sight, saluted General Grant with 
cannon as he appeared. Grant forbade it, "lest it 
might unnecessarily hurt the feelings of his prison- 
ers." How great appears this contrasted with the 
course pursued by William the Conqueror! Harold, 
the last Saxon king, fell like a hero at Hastings, 
showing the greatest courage and heroism. As 
the old Trojan mother begged the body of her 
son. Hector, from Achilles, so Harold's mother 
begged the body of her son from William. But 
William spurned her with a sneer, saying, "Let 
him lie in the sand; Harold mounted guard on the 
coast while he was alive, he may continue his 
guard now he is dead." How Grant's conduct 
contrasts with Darius the Great! The Athenians 
burned Sardis, one of his dependencies. Darius 
called for his bow and shot an arrow toward 
heaven, saying, "O, Supreme God, grant me that 
I may avenge myself on the Athenians," then 



174 



PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 



Seldom 
criticised 



Protected 
the defeated 



appointed a servant to say to him every day as 
lie sat at meat, "Sire, remember the Athenians." 

After the surrender at Appomattox Grant's 
officers wanted him to go over into the Confederate 
works. He started to gratify them, but meeting 
Lee he stopped to talk with him for two hours and 
the time came for him to go to Washington, so 
he turned about and never saw the inside of the 
lines he had sought so long to enter. There was 
no triumphal marching, as in Rome, with chained 
captives. 

He often praised as generously as the case would 
allow, and he seldom criticised anyone. When 
Bragg failed at Chattanooga, Grant simply said, 
'T cannot see why he so acted." When Rosecrans 
by failure caused great embarrassment to Grant, 
Grant said, "I do not blame Rosecrans. I blame 
myself for not having a staff officer with him to 
keep me informed." 

Sent to correct the terms of surrender given by 
Sherman to Johnston, he remained far in the rear, 
concealing his presence from most of the troops, 
refusing to take from Sherman the honor of the 
surrender which he had earned. When the re- 
sistance to the government ceased he treated all 
as Americans, as fellow-citizens. 

President Johnson asked Grant, "At what time 
can Lee and Beauregard and other leading rebels 
be arrested and imprisoned .^" Grant replied, "Mr. 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 175 

President, so long as these men remain at home 
and observe the terms of their parole you never 
can do so. The army of the United States stands 
between these men and you." 

Charles Sumner, with a committee, asked his 
cooperation in having a picture of Lee's surrender 
painted in the rotunda of the Capitol. Grant said, 
"No, gentlemen. While I can prevent it there 
shall be no picture in the rotunda representing a 
surrender in which Americans are the humiliated 
parties." No wonder the South was the first to 
tender him the nomination for the Presidency. 
He was preeminently a man of peace. 

When necessary he could as quietly as he could Disapproved 
eat his breakfast order "an attack along the whole ^^^^^ ^^^^^ 
line," though he knew that it meant certain death 
to thousands of men. Yet he never could endure 
any useless risk of life. When Blondin was to 
cross Niagara on a wire, Grant, though at the 
Falls, would not look at him. It was a useless 
hazard of a life. He could quietly order Sheridan, 
"Lay waste the Shenandoah," yet when soldiers 
were leaping their horses over hurdles for amuse- 
ment Grant turned away, because it was an 
unnecessary exposure of life. When he was Presi- 
dent a woman whose husband had been sentenced 
for a long term for some offense besought him for 
pardon. He asked her, "Why do you urge his 
pardon?" She said, "I am tired of explaining to 



176 



PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 



Home lover 



my children why their papa does not come home." 
Grant wrote the pardon while tears were stealing 
down his cheeks. 

A tender and touching word to his son, Colonel 
Frederick Grant, from his deathbed comes to us 
out of his fatherly heart, showing what estimate 
he placed upon right living. He said, "I had 
rather see you suffer as I suffer now than see you 
abandoned to any vice." When asked as to where 
he would be buried, he said, "I am not particular, 
only this, I want to be buried where there will be 
room for my wife to lie by my side." To the last 
the love and the hope of the Christian family. 

A little time before he went to Mount Mc- 
Gregor, the Sunday school class of Mrs. General 
Clinton B. Fisk, from the Madison Avenue Meth- 
odist Episcopal Sunday School, asked if he would 
sit at the window and let them sing for him. He 
consented, and when they had sung at the window 
of his room in Sixty-sixth Street he asked them 
where in the Park they were to have their lunch. 
They told him on Peacock Hill. In the afternoon 
he ordered his carriage and drove out there. They 
swarmed about him, and again at his request sang 
for him. This was his last ride to Central Park. 
He was a man of peace, and children and gentle 
people were drawn to him. 
A Christian The lustcr of this great man is increased by his 
love of peace. He said in Guild Hall, "Although a 



Loved 
children 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 177 

soldier by education and profession, I have never 
felt any sort of fondness for war, and have never 
advocated it except as a means of peace." 

He said to the Peace Society in Birmingham, 
"It has been my misfortune to be engaged in more 
battles than any other General on the other side 
of the Atlantic; but there never was a time during 
my command when I would not have gladly 
chosen some settlement by reason rather than by 
sword." 

Listen to his words to Bismarck: " The truth is 
I am more of a farmer than a soldier. I take 
little interest in military affairs, and although I 
entered the army thirty-five years ago, and I have 
been in two wars, I never went into the army 
without regret and never retired without pleasure." 

Once when talking with him I asked him. Grant's judg- 
*'Upon what do you rely most for honorable mentofhis 

^,f 1- ,11 11 greatest work 

mention among men.f^ 1 expected he would say 
upon his Vicksburg campaign, or upon his Chat- 
tanooga campaign, or upon his Peninsula cam- 
paign. I was surprised to have him answer 
without hesitation, "The Treaty of Washington." 
I remember how he emphasized his satisfaction 
over that treaty, by which the "Alabama claims" 
were settled without war. He said to me, *T 
regard that as the first of a long series to follow 
which will ultimately supersede war. England and 
the United States are so far advanced that such 



178 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

settlements are possible. Soon France or Germany 
will join in this policy. When two or three more 
nations come up to this light they will not allow 
the other nations to fight." How simple he made 
the way appear for the coming of that time when 
wars shall be no more! This greatest warrior of 
all time had so much of the wisdom of the states- 
man and the vision of the prophet that he saw 
the coming time "when wars and warriors should 
be forgotten" and mankind would remember the 
author of the first great arbitration, the Treaty 
of Washington. 
Never It hardly seems necessary to proclaim General 

profane Grant a Christian. It goes without saying after 
such a life as his, so quiet, so gentle, so just, so 
full of integrity, so rich in Christian faith and in 
saving work. Those who knew him most in- 
timately never heard him utter a profane or vulgar 
word. A staff officer came into headquarters one 
day quite elated and said, "I have a good story. 
There are no ladies here, are there .^" Grant 
answered, "No, but there are gentlemen." Sweet 
water does not flow from a bitter fountain. 
Attended He was a regular attendant upon church. He 

church iq\^ Senator Stanford that he never had a doubt 

of the immortality of the soul. He was a firm 
believer in Divine Providence. He said to Mr. 
Lincoln, in the presence of his Cabinet, when he 
received his appointment as Lieutenant-General, 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 179 

speaking of the performance of his duties, "And 
I know that if they are met, it will be due to those 
armies, and, above all, to the favor of that Prov- 
idence which leads both nations and men." This 
contrasts with the words of Miltiades at Marathon 
as favorably as a Christian civilization does with 
a heathen. He was urging the Greek generals 
to fight at once and not wait for the Spartans. 
He said, "If we fight before there is anything 
rotten in the state of Athens, I believe that we 
are able to get the best of it in an engagement, 
provided the gods give fair play and no favor." 

When he was Colonel of the Twenty-first Illinois Blessing at 
Volunteers he gave all the aid possible to secure ^ ® 
the uniform observance of religious services. As 
his mess gathered around the table he said to 
Chaplain Crane, "Chaplain, when I was at home 
and ministers were stopping at my house I always 
invited them to ask a blessing at the table. I 
suppose a blessing is as much needed here as at 
home, and if it is agreeable with your views I 
should be glad to have you ask a blessing every 
time we sit down to eat." 

You all remember those simple words, written on 
a card when he could not use his voice and handed 
to a Catholic priest who called on him, expressing 
the strongest faith in all denominations based upon 
the Scripture of the Old and New Testaments, 
and gratitude for the prayers of all Christians. 



180 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

Ready to die We are fully prepared to read his words to Dr. 
Douglas about his willingness and readiness to go 
hence: "If it is within God's Providence that I 
should go now, I am ready to obey his call with- 
out a murmur." 

Religious As President, in 1876, he wrote to some Sunday 

beUefs school children in Philadelphia, "My advice to 

Sunday schools, no matter what their denomina- 
tion, is, Hold fast to the Bible as the sheet anchor 
to your liberties; write its precepts in your hearts, 
and practice them in your lives. To the influence 
of this Book are we indebted for all progress made 
in our true civilization, and to this we must look 
as our guide in the future. 'Righteousness exalteth 
a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.' " 

He said to his pastor, "I believe in the Holy 
Scriptures, and whoever believes their teachings 
will be benefited thereby." At his own request he 
received the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. He 
was raised in an old-fashioned Methodist family, 
and knew what being converted and having religion 
meant. He was too honest to take the sacrament 
without meaning its utmost implications. And 
among his last utterances he said, "I pray that 
we may all meet in a better world." This carries 
us up to the border of the unseen country. 

His last The great, calm, resolute, upright soul marches 

believingly and peacefully into the unknown, and 
stands wondering and adoring in the Eternal 



letter 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 181 

Presence. The light of gladsome rest lights up 
the war-worn features. Unexpectedly, as his habit 
was in his great engagements, the works of the 
last enemy are flanked, and we have a communi- 
cation to his wife, so sweet and tender that we 
forget the soldier, and our sorrowing hearts cling 
to the husband and father, as his letter to his 
wife comes back to us: "Look after our dear 
children, and direct them in the paths of rectitude. 
It would distress me far more that one of them 
would depart from an honorable, upright, and 
virtuous life than it would to know that they were 
prostrated on a bed of sickness, from which they 
were never to arise alive. They have never given 
any cause for alarm, on this account, and I earnestly 
pray that they never will. With these few injunc- 
tions, and the knowledge that I have of your love 
and affection, and of their dutiful affection, I bid 
you a final farewell until we meet in another and 
I trust a better world. You will find this on my 
person, after my demise." 

He approached death like a philosopher. Soc- 
rates, with the hemlock in his hand, was not 
more thoughtful. He entered into the last struggle 
like a warrior. Leonidas at Thermopylae was not 
more determined. He triumphed like a Christian. 
Irenseus at the stake was not more confident. 

In his life he was honored in every civilized land Honored 
and court. The common people of England ^^^^y^^^' 



182 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

crowded each other for hours on the streets and 
highways where he was to pass, that they might 
shake his hand, or at least see him. They knew 
he had preserved freedom for the common people. 
The courts and crowned heads of the world felt 
honored to serve him. The statesmen sought 
every available hour to consult with him. Even 
non-Christian nations asked him to arbitrate be- 
tween them. No other man was ever honored 
in life all the world around as highly as this simple, 
modest son of our Republic. And in his death he 
was mourned in every palace and hamlet of the 
civilized earth. Federal and Confederate officers, 
Northern and Southern cities, republican and 
monarchical governments, men of all faiths and 
of all trades, princes and peasants, war-worn 
veterans and little children, united in the common 
sorrow. Badges of mourning were displayed in 
all the capitals and cities of the world. England's 
army and navy floated the Union Jack at half- 
mast. Her muffled drum-beat encircled the globe. 
By the instinct of the people, her bands forbore 
their joyous notes and joined in the universal dirge; 
and Westminster Abbey, crowded with the re- 
nowned of the kingdom, rang with eloquent and 
unstinted praise from her great preacher, gladly 
bestowed upon this modest man, once a "leather 
seller of Galena." From all lands, and over all 
seas, came the throb of sympathy and the sob of 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 183 

sorrow. For General Grant belonged to the race, 
and as some one said over Webster, "The world 
is lonesome without him." 

If the accurate apprehension of the entire case. Greatest 
a clear conception of the course to be pursued, ^^^}^^ 
and a wise adjustment of means for the ends to 
be reached; if the forming of the most compre- 
hensive and farreaching plans, the combination of 
varied campaigns in one majestic system, the 
selection of exactly right men for each subordinate 
place, the accurate determination of what might be 
done by each army and division in a given time, 
so as to bring them to a common point at a given 
moment; if the control of the largest armies the 
world ever saw, the fighting of the greatest number 
of great battles without a single defeat, the con- 
quering of the greatest hosts of the best fighting 
race known to history, the taking of the greatest 
number of great prisoners ever taken in a single 
war, marching armies through a hostile country 
farther than Napoleon marched going to Moscow, 
and farther than Hannibal marcked in coming into 
Italy; if the patient and uncomplaining endurance 
of the most malicious misrepresentations, without 
being turned aside one moment from the great 
work intrusted to him, nor from the most generous 
magnanimity even tov/ard maligners, where the 
requirements of the public service would permit, 
walking on in sublime and silent solitude, unmind-. 



184 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

ful alike of pestering assaults and Parthian arrows; 
if to write orders and reports aggregating volumes, 
under all the disadvantages of camp life, and in 
all the weariness of marches, sieges, and battles, 
and to produce contributions to current literature, 
and volumes of standard and permanent history, 
and put them into the purest English, with the 
simplest and clearest construction, destined to a 
place among the classics of the language; if to 
speak to the most varied audiences of peasants, 
farmers, merchants, bankers, statesmen, cabinets, 
monarchs, all the world around, always showing 
an accurate knowledge of the subject in hand, 
and perfect mastery of the situation, winning 
golden laurels in all fields; — if these unprecedented 
achievements, wrought with the steadiest hand and 
most unchanging countenance ever seen in public 
affairs, never doubting before the greatest diflS- 
culties, never shrinking under the heaviest burdens, 
never fearing in the midst of the greatest perils, 
never exulting over the greatest triumphs, never 
being elated by the greatest glory, never flinch- 
ing under the most intense suffering, remaining 
always the same simple, quiet, reposeful man; if, 
according to God's standard — ^judged by "deeds 
done in the body" — these things are to be es- 
timated in the measure of greatness, then we are 
compelled to acknowledge that we are in the 
presence of the gi*eatest military genius of all 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 185 

time, and one of the very few greatest characters 
of all ages. 

Let us take one glance at his place in human Place in 
history. I turn to the past. It is full of warriors, ^^^y 
But among them I see no Grant. I do see Na- 
poleon, "grand, gloomy, and peculiar, a sceptered 
hermit"; yet over his fields of glory and over his 
throne I read, "Selfish Ambition." I see great 
Csesar, of majestic stature, but beneath his feet is 
the dying Roman Republic, and on his sword I 
read, "Merciless Despotism." I see far back on 
the summit of the Alps stout old Hannibal, but the 
dusky warriors that obeyed his command were 
marauders, living on spoils, and the spirit that 
spurred him to deeds of historic splendor was 
merciless and revengeful hatred. But here stands 
Grant, on the summit of his unprecedented deeds, 
in the solitude of his exalted character, rooted 
and grounded in the "arduous greatness of things 
achieved," a soldier, who conquered a great people 
and ennobled them by the moderation with which 
he used his victory; a ruler, who healed the wound 
in the breast of the nation and made its people 
one by the impartiality of his administration; a 
citizen, who walked fame's most illustrious heights, 
with such unaffected simplicity that the humblest 
citizen is drawn up to nobleness by the magnetism 
of his example; a patriot, who wrought for freedom 
With ^'cTi exalted deVdticfti that eVen the van- 



186 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

quished rejoice in his triumph. There he stands, 
with Washington and Lincoln, on the dome of 
these centuries, loved by his countrymen, honored 
by mankind, and to be remembered and emulated 
till the latest generation. 

Friends, countrymen, brothers, from the North 
and from the South, from the East and from the 
West, and from all lands under the stars, let us 
cherish the memory of Grant and emulate his 
greatness, reproduce his many virtues, and per- 
petuate the Republic he preserved. 




WILLIAM McKINLEY 



WILLIAM M '^'T^'LEY 

.Vt the time of the assassination of Prt»si<l- nt McKirlc" Jn Br-ff.-tlf?, 
l-',ew York, Bishop Fowler was a resident of that 

\C : . e 

turneci away from the church, unable to gain admia'sion. 



1S7 



WILLIAM McKINLE\ 



WILLIAM McKINLEY 



At the time of the assassination of President McKinley in Buffalo, 
New York, Bishop Fowler was a resident of that city. At the re- 
quest of its citizens he delivered this oration at the Delaware Avenue 
Methodist Episcopal Church. Many thousands of mourners were 
turned away from the church, unable to gain admission. 



187 



WILLIAM McKINLEY 

TAKE out of Greece a dozen names, and 
you have made even that classic soil bar- 
ren. Take out of America a dozen names, 
and you destroy half of our essential wealth. 
Carlyle said England would sooner give up her 
Indian empire than her Shakespeare. We can put 
no price on our great men and heroes. 

We have some magnificent buildings. The 
National Library building in Washington is an 
inspired dream, crystallized by the wand of genius 
into marble and gold, so enchanting and majestic 
that we appreciate the bewilderment of the Arizona 
chief who had seen with Indian stolidity the 
government buildings, the new Post OflSce, and 
the Capitol itself, but gazing at the Library build- 
ing, with its spacious stairway, its lofty columns 
and decorations in chiseled marble and tracery of 
gold, he threw up his hands in amazement, ask- 
ing, "Made by man ?'' This and all these build- 
ings are not the glory of America. You must 
seek that elsewhere. 

We have some great and wonderful cities that Men the 
for rapid growth, lofty buildings, and palatial t^e glory 
homes are not surpassed anywhere on earth. 

189 



190 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

These are not the true glory of America. Let the 
nations of the earth combine against us, swarm 
everywhere along our coasts and burn all our sea- 
board cities, and they would have done nothing. 
We would retire inland beyond their naval cannon 
and await them and welcome them to bloody 
graves. They might destroy to the last hamlet, 
desolate to the last hearth, and desecrate to the 
last altar, and still they would have done nothing. 
There would remain the invincible millions of 
freemen, with the productive continent beneath our 
feet and the free heavens above our heads, with 
our heroic history behind us and the long habit 
of liberty woven into our every fiber. There would 
remain the free, trained, human mind, swift as 
the light, unapproachable as the sun, strong as 
the Eternal purposes, resistless as destiny, and 
deathless as God. Here, here, in this field, we 
must look for the glory of America. When our 
free institutions have in this field brought forth a 
William McKinley, it is as if another sun had 
risen on the noonday never to go down. 
Unit of Some distances are so vast that it is most diffi- 

measure- ^^^i to find a Unit of measurement. To measure 
the dooryards of our neighboring stars, the dis- 
tance between the earth and sun can serve as an 
inch-rule. But when we wish to measure the 
diameter of the known universe, the wide orbit 
of the sun itself is too short, too infinitesimal. In 



WILLIAM McKINLEY 191 

measuring such a man as McKinley it is hard to 
find a proper unit of measurement. 

Cortez, in his march into Mexico, suffered Importance 
destructive defeat. Many of his men were killed of great men 
and his vessels were destroyed. In his retreat his 
despair was dispelled by the sight of his ship- 
wright safe and well. Having him, he knew he 
could make more ships. It was not the craft, but 
the builder, that was of priceless value. It is not 
the cities, but the citizens, that constitute the 
strength and glory of America. It is the great 
man that weighs in the scales of destiny. Cicero 
said of Caesar, his great antagonist, "All the acts 
of Caesar, his writings, his words, his promises, Csesar 
his thoughts, have more force since his death 
than if he were still alive." Louis Napoleon said, 
"For ages it was enough to tell the world that 
such was the will of Caesar for the world to obey it." 

Admiral Coligny, the great Huguenot com- Coligny 
mander, embodied all the hopes of his party. 
Assassinated by the treachery of his king, the 
hope of Protestantism went down with him. His 
country lost the path to freedom, and wandered 
through the gloom of superstition and persecution 
into the crimson night of the Reign of Terror. 
He was great in character and achievement, but 
he left no foundation upon which Liberty could 
stand. France is only a tatter on the threshold 
of the twentieth century. William McKinley was 



192 



PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 



William the 
Silent 



A typical 
American 



slain In the midst of his great work, but so firmly 
had he builded that the rumbling wheels of his 
funeral car did not jar the foundations of the 
temple he had helped to rear. 

In some ways we find a measure of McKinley 
in William the Silent. Struggling for the freedom 
of Holland, having it as his task to stand against 
the despotisms of Europe and convert habitual 
defeat into victory, he so trained his people by 
their very conflicts that his principles remained 
and his martyr blood only cemented the founda- 
tions of the Dutch republic. He stands as the 
great sacrifice for that heroic people who formed 
for centuries the advance guard, the picket line, 
fighting for the world's civil and religious freedom. 

The best types of McKinley and associates in 
sacrifice are found in our own history in the memory 
of living men. We turn from Caesar and from 
Coligny and from William the Silent to the great 
martyr of our land. 

In William McKinley we see the typical Amer- 
ican on his Mount of Transfiguration. Born on 
an American farm, he started barefooted in the 
furrow. Trained in the common school of econ- 
omy, he carried the simple habits of the village 
into the White House. Marching in the ranks 
of the toiling millions of the Republic, he rises 
with Lincoln and Garfield to the solitude of the 
martyr's throne. 



WILLIAM McKINLEY 193 

His death is a surprise to the civilized world, 
a shock to the human race. Lincoln was assas- The martyred 
sinated by the infuriated and incarnated spirit of presidents 
civil war. Garfield was assassinated by disap- 
pointed personal lunacy. McKinley was assas- 
sinated by the incarnated, organized lunacy of 
anarchy. Lincoln was struck by a bolt from an 
exhausted thundercloud. Garfield was smitten by 
the paw of an uncaged wild beast. McKinley 
was carried away by a rainbow of promise sud- 
denly twisted into a cyclone of wrath. We the 
American people are surprised beyond utterance. 
Those who looked into McKinley's face in that 
awful moment when the fatal bullet entered his 
body say that a most penetrating gaze, never be- 
fore seen in his gentle eyes, pierced the eyes of 
the assassin, followed first by a look of surprise, 
then by a look of pity. So we stand to-day in the 
presence of this calamity that has befallen the 
nation, vainly trying to penetrate its motive and 
mystery, and wondering what world we are in 
where such crimes are possible. Though we can- 
not see the brimstone furnaces, we do grip our 
flesh with nervous hands to make sure that we 
are in the body. 

McKinley sprang from good old Scotch-Irish Genealogy 
blood. His line is traced by John J. Rooney, a 
high authority on genealogies, back to Hermon, 
the first king who ruled over all Ireland, from 



194. PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

whom sprang over eighty kings before the days 
of Saint Patrick. In more modern times his blood 
was mixed with Scotch, English, and Dutch, the 
finest mixtures to be found in the world. Thick 
and strong as is our English blood, we all know 
what thrift and enterprise are in this Scotch-Irish 
blood, how rich in patriots and martyrs it has 
been for centuries. Then through his mother 
comes that wonderful Dutch blood, more thickly 
mixed with love of freedom than any other blood in 
all these modern centuries. We must not forget 
that it is to Holland that we owe nearly everything 
in our free institutions — our written constitution 
with checks on the executive, our state constitu- 
tions federated in autonomy, our free church, free 
press, wide suffrage, secret ballot, free schools for 
boys and girls alike, free libraries, free judiciary, 
equal division of intestate land, public record of 
deeds and mortgages, for the accused guaranteed 
subpoenas for his witnesses and counsel for his 
defense, and the emancipation of married women. 
What a crop of rights and liberties! They cost 
the sacrifices and blood of the eighty years' war. 
They are worth all they cost, enough to enrich a 
hundred republics. All these the gift of the Dutch 
f republic — a rich sea among those old Dutch dykes, 
a good sea in which to fish for heroes. McKinley 
I comes of a long line of patriots and soldiers. It 
I could hardly happen that an appeal should be 



WILLIAM McKINLEY 195 

made to defend the flag in his presence without 

a prompt response. We are not surprised to see 

him wearing the uniform of a common soldier 

when he was only seventeen years old. 

The successive important dates in the life of Chronology 

the late President are as follows : 

1844, February 26, William McKinley, Jr., born 
at Niles, Ohio. 

1860-61— Taught school at Poland, Ohio. 

1861, May — Enlisted as private soldier, Twenty- 
third Ohio Volunteer Infantry. 

1861-65 — His war record: Served on the staffs of 
Generals Hayes and Crook; became Sergeant; 
was made Second Lieutenant for gallant con- 
duct at Antietam; served throughout the 
Valley Campaign; made Captain, and breveted 
Major *'for gallant and efficient services." 
Mustered out, July, '65. 

1865-67 — Studied law in Warren, Ohio; admitted 
to the bar; went to live at Canton. 

1869 — Elected District Attorney of Stark County. 
Served '69-71. 

1871— Married Miss Ida Saxton. 

1876-90— In Congress. Elected to the Forty-fifth 
Congress as a Republican. Reelected to the 
Forty-sixth, Forty-seventh, Forty-eighth, Fif- 
tieth, and Fifty-first Congress. In Fifty-first 
Congress made Chairman of Committee on 
Ways and Means, and in that capacity pre- 



196 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

pared the bill to reduce the revenue and 
equalize duties on imports, known as the 
McKinley Bill. 
1891— Elected Governor of Ohio, 21,000 plurality. 
1892 — Made permanent Chairman Republican 
National Convention at Minneapolis, and re- 
ceived 182 votes for the nomination for 
President. 
1893— Reelected Governor of Ohio, 80,000 plu- 
rality. 
1896 — Elected President of the United States. 
1900 — Reelected President of the United States. 
1901, September 6 — Shot at a reception in the 
Temple of Music, Pan-American Exposition, 
Buffalo. 
1901, September 14 — Died at the home of John 
G. Milburn, No. 1168 Delaware Avenue, 
Buffalo, from the effects of the wound re- 
ceived on September 6. 
Inheritance His education is a subject of inheritance. Some 
one has said that a man's training must begin in 
his mother. We prefer to go farther back. It 
must start generations before his mother. It is a 
long journey from one end of the cat-o'-nine-tails 
to the other. It takes at least five generations 
to so remake a bondman that the hollow of his 
foot will not make a hole in the ground. Nature 
uses many rugged and rough teachers in making 
a hero or in maturing a great people. 



WILLIAM McKINLEY 197 

We were taken out of the nursery of the mother 
country and planted in the wilderness of the New 
World. See how we were developed and inured 
on the mountain side, to storm and tempest, 
while we were in that English nursery. This was 
the nursery in which we were sprouted and tough- 
ened for the wilderness. This was the school that 
enriched the blood and toughened the fiber of 
William McKinley. Thus nature made him strong 
enough to be gentle, brave enough to be true, and 
great enough to be unselfish. Thus he was pre- 
pared for the education that made him great 
among the great. 

The strong Holland strain that reached him From his 
through his mother allied him to the soldiers of ^o*^"" 
/ William the Silent, and to the martyrs who pur- 
chased civil and religious liberty fighting the 
\ butchers of the Duke of Alva and on all the battle- 
fields of the Netherlands. 

Caesar boasted that he was descended from 
Anchises and Venus through the famous Marius 
and the family of Marcius Rex. He says, "Our 
house united to the sacred character of kings who 
are the most powerful among men, the venerated 
holiness of the gods who hold kings themselves 
under their subjection." McKinley 's line runs 
back on one side to the father of eighty kings, 
I and on the other to the martyrs of the eighty 
Wears' war for religious liberty. History will never 



\ 



198 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

lose the name of Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi, 
nor of Aurelia, mother of Csesar, nor of Atia, 
mother of Augustus, nor of Mary, mother of 
Washington, nor of Nancy Hanks, mother of 
Lincoln, nor of Nancy, mother of McKinley. A 
necessary part of true education and of possible 
greatness is a divine call to be borne by a great 
mother. 
Education Sprung from such stock and from a mother 

with hard common sense and exalted religious 
convictions as old as Protestantism, he was pre- 
pared to make the most of all his chances for 
education. His education was in the common 
school, where he caught ideas and flies, the public 
caldron which must be kept boiling, for boiling it 
will work off enough to keep it healthy, but let 
it cool and stagnate and it will soon make room 
for the man on horseback. So the public schools 
must be defended. We must stand around if need 
be with red-hot bayonets and keep them from 
every hand that would rend them and from every 
tongue that would slander them. From the public 
school he went to Poland Academy, and Allegheny 
College, where he mastered the course to the 
senior year. Seeking health, teaching school, and 
drilling in the army were his best chances for 
discipline. The responsibilities of a commissioned 
officer almost constantly on the firing line were 
his ablest teachers. After these drillmasters had 



WILLIAM McKINLEY 199 

turned him over to the pursuits of peace, the 
careful study of law further prepared him for his 
high duties and destiny. 

Sometimes we have heard of the "McKinley "McKiniey 
luck." This phrase sounds like the snarl of ^"^^ 
envious mediocrity. I have exploited this lead 
and can report on the subject. He never wasted 
either strength or time. He kept himself well 
groomed, always in hand, never slouchy. He took 
no chances of leaving an unfavorable impression 
either by dress or by manner. He approached the 
care of a gentleman. He avoided making enemies. 
He carefully made friends. His clothes were kept 
up to regulation requirement. His weapons were 
as bright as the brightest. He spent his spare 
hours reading the biographies of great generals. 
He was almost obnoxious to the criticism passed 
by Cicero upon Caesar, that *'he scratched his 
head with one finger so as not to rumple his 
carefully combed locks." One comrade said of 
him as he passed, "Billy Mac is almost a dude." 
An old veteran replied, "You watch that lad. I 
have studied him. He will be a General yet." 
He studied carefully everything he had to do. 
He soon became the authority on whatever subject 

(he needed to handle. As a law student he was 
known as "Mr. Dig, Dig, Dig." When he opened 
an ofl&ce he made himself useful to the other 
lawyers about him. He was thorough. Anything 



200 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

that was worth doing was worth doing well. 
When he copied a paper for a lawyer it was so 
carefully done that the next paper to be copied 
would be brought to him. This habit gave him 
cases from other oflSces. "Dig, dig, dig," is the 
secret of the ''McKinley luck.", 

In Congress he bent his every energy to the 
thing Congress gave him to do. He mastered the 
statistics of all the productive pursuits of the 
country. He wrote hundreds of letters to men on 
all sides of his questions so as to know how things 
looked to them. He questioned men and treasured 
their information. He could give from memory 
the figures on the production, export, and import 
of many if not most of the commodities handled 
I by his tariff. During the Spanish War it became 
'\ necessary to know the equipment and supplies of 
a certain obscure garrison. The papers were not 
at hand. McKinley gave them from memory, and 
later comparison verified his figures. This ex- 
plains the *'McKinley luck." 
His sayings His sayiugs Can be placed in the same catalogue 
with the aphorisms of Lincoln and Grant — not 
always so intense, but comprehensive, showing 
grasp and discipline of mind. I clip from a col- 
lection of one of the great dailies: 

"A noble manhood, nobly consecrated to man, never dies." 
"Patriotism is above party, and national honor is dearer than 
any party name." 



WILLIAM McKINLEY 201 

"I believe in arbitration as a principle; I believe it should pre- 
vail in the settlement of international differences. It represents a 
higher civilization than the arbitrament of war. I believe it is in 
close accord with the best thought and sentiment of mankind; I 
believe God puts no nation in supreme place which will not do 
supreme duty." 

"An open schoolhouse, free to all, evidences the highest type 
of advanced civilization. It is the gateway to progress, prosperity, 
and honor, and the best security for the liberties and independence 
of the people. It is the strongest rock of the foundation, the most 
enduring stone of the temple of hberty; our surest stay in every 
storm, our present safety, our future hope — aye, the very citadel 
of our influence and power. It is better than garrisons and guns, 
than forts and fleets." 

"The want of the time is manly men, men of character, culture, 
and courage, of faith and sincerity; the exalted manhood which 
forges its way to the front by the force of its own merits." 

"The American home where honesty, sobriety, and truth pre- 
side, and a simple, everyday virtue without pomp and ostentation 
is practiced, is the nursery of all true education." 

"Christian character is the foundation upon which we must 
build if our citizenship is to be lifted up and our institutions are 
to endure." 

"No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the invisible 
hand which conducts the affairs of man more than the people of 
the United States. Every step by which they have advanced to 
the character of an independent nation seems to have been dis- 
tinguished by some token of providential agency." 

"The men who established this government had faith in God 
and sublimely trusted him. They besought counsel and advice in 
every step of their progress. And so it has been ever since ; American 
history abounds in instances of this trait of piety, this sincere re- 
liance on a higher power in all great trials of our national affairs." 



202 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

Success in His leadership in Congress was achieved by con- 

Congress gtant studj and application to the matters in hand. 
A wide and careful reader, he became acquainted 
with almost every subject that could come before 
Congress. In 1889 he was put at the head of the 
Committee on Ways and Means, on account of 
his wide information and tireless industry, where 
he achieved a national reputation and molded the 
policy of the government and of the country. His 
policy became the policy of the country. His 
name is attached to the distinguishing legislation 
that formed a chief issue between the great national 
parties. Congress furnished him a wide and 
inviting field for the development and use of his 
great powers. Brought into close relation and 
often into intellectual strife with the great men 
gathered there from all the States, he was under 
constant incitement to mental activity. It was a 
most strenuous life. No college curriculum could 
have been better fitted to the maturing of his 
faculties. "Dig, Dig, Dig," is the secret of the 
''McKinley luck." 
As a soldier Napolcou ouce Said, "In war men are nothing; 
a man is everything." There is a gulf, almost as 
impassable as the gulf between Dives and Lazarus, 
between the common soldier and the general com- 
manding. It takes a whirlwind of fire and a 
favoring Providence to lift a private over that gulf. 
The battle is the general's. The private is only 



WILLIAM McKINLEY 203 

food for powder. All history so describes the 
strifes of war. To write a history of the common 
soldier is like writing an epic upon a page of a 
city directory. Yet General Grant dedicated his 
wonderful "Memoirs," books that will be read as 
long as the English language is read, **To the 
American soldier and sailor"; and he said, when 
leaving America for his celebrated trip around the 
world, *'The honor for saving the Republic is due 
as much to the soldiers who carried muskets as 
to the officers in command." The man who made 
the actual sacrifices for the country, who endured 
the sore privations, slept on the ground uncovered 
in the rain, ate scant supplies of ''hard-tack," 
waded the streams waist deep in the midst of 
floating ice, who pressed his way over slippery 
pontoons into the hot mouths of blazing cannon, 
who actually bared his bosom to shot and shell, 
to bayonet and saber, who paved with his body 
the highway for cavalry hoofs and artillery wheels 
in order that Liberty might have the right of way 
— that man was the common soldier. 

While McKinley enlisted as a common soldier. Enlisted as 
and never till the very last rose above the rank ^^^^^"^ 

J. fY, . . r- ' P soldier 

01 a company omcer, yet it is fitting for us to 
pause a moment on his war record. 

On the 11th of June, 1861, he went to Camp 
Chase, in Columbus, Ohio, and was personally 
inspected by General John C. Fremont, once a 



204 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

Republican candidate for the Presidency, who 
looked him over, thumped his chest, saying, 
*'You'll do." McKinley said, "I am going to do 
the very best I can." That day General Fremont 
spoke wiser than he knew. He little dreamed how 
much that lad would do. That was a wonderful 
regiment, the Twenty-third Ohio Volunteers. 
Its first Colonel became General Rosecrans, 
Major - General commanding the Department 
of the Cumberland. Its Lieutenant-Colonel was 
Stanley Matthews, afterward United States Sen- 
ator and Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. 
Its first Major was Rutherford B. Hayes, after- 
ward General, Governor of Ohio, and President 
of the United States. That was a distinguished 
regiment. In its ranks, disguised in the uniforms 
of common soldiers, were Lieutenant-Governors, 
Congressmen, Judges, and one more President. 
This regiment justified the boast that there were 
brains enough in the average Northern regiment 
to stock a whole Congress. 
"Baptism of On September 10, 1861, at Carnifex Ferry, fight- 
^^" ing against General Floyd, once Secretary of War, 

McKinley received his "baptism of fire." This is 
the sacrament of war that fixes the character of 
the private soldier. When a lad sees the column 
shifting position, regiments deploying into the field 
and putting aside their knapsacks, and sees the 
staff ofl[icers gathering about the generals, ready 



WILLIAM McKINLEY 205 

for use, then his pulse quickens and he has to 
swallow a lump in his throat. When his regiment 
files out into line, taking him with it, and he sees 
the enemy whirling their artillery into place, and 
off to one side, under cover of some knoll or strip 
of timber, the long tables of the surgeons and the 
surgeons themselves with their aprons on and their 
assistants by them with the knives and bandages 
ready and waiting to be used, and then looks along 
the waiting line of his comrades and knows that 
in ten minutes some of those well, sound, manly 
forms will be on those tables, under those knives, 
and that those limbs now so ready to march will 
then be carried away by the cart-load to be buried 
— then the black angel of destiny feels of every 
fiber of the lad's being, and the hero in him leaps 
to the front and stamps him for all future battles 
and campaigns. The heroes in the great volunteer 
armies of the Republic are so thick that, like the 
blood-washed throng on the jasper sea, no man 
can number them. 

Do you wish to know how our Ohio lad handled His 
himself in this *'baptism of fire" ? Come with me ^^*^^^y 
to Kernstown, near Winchester. General Crook, 
with a small force, including General Hayes's 
brigade and the Twenty-third Ohio Volunteers, 
is fighting an overwhelming division of General 
Early's army, and is obliged to fall back. One 
regiment, the Thirteenth West Virginia, evidently 



206 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

has not received the order to retreat. With the cool 
pluck of tigers they are standing against the great 
army and are being rapidly separated from their 
friends and surrounded by their enemies. Ten 
minutes will fix their fate. They will be buried yon- 
der where they are so doggedly fighting, or yonder 
in the famine pens of Richmond or Andersonville. 
General Hayes sees the peril, quickly calls Lieu- 
tenant McKinley, and asks, "Lieutenant, can you 
take the order to that regiment .''" "Yes, General," 
was the response. "It is a dangerous errand.'* 
"I know it, but I will go." Turning his famous 
bob-tailed horse that way, he gave him the rein 
and the spur and was off like a bolt from a cata- 
pult. It was a long ride over fences and ditches, 
in the open view of the enemy. One officer said, 
"He can't make it"; another, "He is a dead man.'* 
Boys from his old company called, "Billy Mac, 
come back. It is impossible." The enemy saw 
him and their sharpshooters aimed at him. Their 
bullets whistled about him. But on he rode. A 
rebel battery was trained on him and a shell 
went screeching after him and burst behind him. 
Another and another screeched after him. Then 
down go horse and rider as a shell bursts 
on a fence as his horse is leaping it. "He is 
dead," said a staff officer, and Hayes, bowing 
his head, said, "I knew he would never go 
through it." But out of the smoke and dust 



WILLIAM McKINLEY 207 

of the exploded shell up sprang the Lieutenant 
and up rose his horse. In a second he mounts 
and is riding again at highest speed toward 
the orchard beyond which was the fighting Thir- 
teenth. McKinley halts before the Colonel and 
delivers his order: "General Hayes orders you to 
retreat; you are unsupported." The Colonel re- 
plied, "Retreat.^ Well, we will have one more 
whack at the scoundrels." Lieutenant McKinley 
directed the way back to their brigade. When he 
came to General Hayes, Hayes grasped his hand, 
saying, "McKinley, I never expected to see you in 
this life again. You did your duty well." No 
officer with stars on his shoulders ever did a braver 
or more heroic deed. This is only one of unnum- 
bered deeds of heroism performed by starless 
shoulders. As Grant said, "The country was saved 
by the boys that came from the shops and the 
farms to fill the ranks. When the safety of the 
country depends upon one man, we will have no 
country worth saving." 

William McKinley was twice promoted for cour- His 
age on the field. Sent with orders to General promotion 
Duval to march by a certain ravine road, he 
found the road impassable for an army. Stating 
the case, he changed the order and General Duval 
arrived in time to save the day. Captain McKinley 
reported to General Crook what he had done. The 
General in surprise asked Captain McKinley, "Did 



recommen 
dation 



208 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

you know you might be cashiered for that ?" The 
Captain answered, "Yes, sir." "Did you know 
that in case of disaster you might be shot as a 
traitor?" "Yes, sir." "Would you take the 
chances, knowing this?" "Yes, sir." He was 
perfectly willing to face anything to save the day 
and the army, and act on his own judgment. 
Signature of His promotion is no surprise to us. The boys 
in his command enjoyed his advancement almost as 
if it were their own. But the names that appear 
on his recommendation and new commission are 
incapable of being duplicated in all human history. 
General Crook wrote, " I have the honor to ear- 
nestly recommend Captain William McKinley, 
Twenty-third Ohio Infantry, for appointment to a 
higher grade than his present rank, for bravery, 
gallantry, soldierly conduct, and distinguished ser- 
vices during the campaigns of West Virginia and 
Shenandoah Valley." General Sheridan indorsed 
it, "Approved. The appointment recommended is 
well deserved." This was also indorsed by General 
Grant, who approved it. Finally it received the 
supreme approval by the hand and name of Abra- 
ham Lincoln. McKinley, Crook, Sheridan, Grant, 
Lincoln — the paper bearing these names, three of 
which have been Presidents of the United States, 
would make an heirloom till the coming of the 
judgment day. On July 26, 1865, McKinley 
was mustered out of the service as a Major, 



WILLIAM McKINLEY g09 

to be again mustered into the service by the 
American people as Commander-in-Chief of 
the Army and Navy. Senator Foraker says Directed 
of his action during the Spanish War, "He Spanish War 
was in reality, as in name, the Commander-in- 
Chief of the Army and the Navy of the United 
States. He marshaled our forces on land and on 
sea, and struck quick and hard and everywhere. 
Not a regiment was organized, not a ship was put 
in commission, not a movement was made, not a 
battle was fought, except with his personal knowl- 
edge, approval, and direction." It was his personal 
order, against the advice of his Cabinet, to Dewey, 
to "find and destroy the Spanish fleet," that 
hurled Dewey into Manila Bay and hurled the 
Spanish squadron down to the bottom of the bay. 
It was his personal order that hurled the warships 
of Sampson and Schley against the fleet of Cervera. 
It was his order that pushed our land forces 
against El Caney, and rushed them up San Juan 
Hill. It was his order that crushed the Spanish 
in Porto Rico. It was his order that put a fleet 
in readiness to move on the seaports of Spain, if 
Spain had hesitated to sue for peace. The un- 
broken series of victories that exalted our arms 
and glorified our flag belonged to him quite as 
much as to the officers he selected to execute his 
will. As Commander-in-Chief he demonstrated 
ability of a high order. 



210 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

As a When he turned his back on promotion in the 

lawyer regular army he turned to the study of the law. 

The principles of the law make a field for the 
deepest study. The law is a great and honorable 
profession. It is an absolute necessity to a free 
government. There must be some place of final 
confidence and of consequent peril. In a Republic 
that place is not in the Executive. If the President 
seeks to overthrow the government, Congress can 
tie him hand and foot in one hour and impeach 
him in another hour. It is not in the Senate, for 
the Lower House holds the purse strings and can 
starve them into loyalty before their second elec- 
tion. It is not in the Lower House, for the people 
have too frequent judgment days for danger there. 
The place of final confidence and consequent peril 
in a Republic is in the Supreme Court. Here 
revolutions can be wrought without powder. Judge 
Taney changed the government from a free govern- 
ment into a slave despotism by one decision 
declaring that the Constitution protected slavery in 
the Territories. The Supreme Court is the place 
of peril. We cannot have a free country without 
a great and unimpeachable Supreme Court. We 
cannot have a great and unimpeachable Supreme 
Court without a great and learned bar. McKinley 
selected this noble profession as the field of his 
work. Success soon met him at the door. Position 
and affluence soon called him by his given name 



WILLIAM McKINLEY ^11 

as if he were their favorite son. When he decided 
to enter that profession he went to Albany Law 
School, where he dug and dug and dug his way 
through. Then he went home. When his mother 
met him she asked, *'Did you pass, William?" 
"I did, Mother." "And now you are an out- and- 
out lawyer.?" *'Yes." "William, I want you to 
promise me one thing. Don't ever take a law case 
that isn't clean." "I'll promise that." "And don't 
ever take a case unless you are sure your client 
is in the right." "I'll promise that too." He 
kept these promises to the end. 

He won his way on that basis to a good practice, Habit of 
was prosecuting attorney for his county a term, success 
As a lawyer he did his full share of unpaid work 
for the poor. He soon acquired the habit of 
success. Events favored him. Once he defended 
a prominent surgeon who was prosecuted for large 
damages for malpractice in deforming a leg he 
had set and cared for. The plaintiff was brought 
into court and exhibited a very crooked leg. The 
case was clear to the jury. The lawyer for the 
plaintiff declared it was neglect, because the man 
was poor. It all looked bad. But McKinley had 
observed the plaintiff, and called him again, and 
asked him to show the other leg. After some 
wriggling and objection, the judge ordered the 
other leg uncovered, when the judge and jury 
burst into uproarious laughter. The other leg was 



212 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

more crooked than the one that had been treated." 
The case was dismissed and McKinley asked the 
court to advise the man to have the other leg 
broken and treated by his client! 

In Congress In 1876 his friends took him out of his law oflSce 
and sent him to Congress, where he remained 
with the exception of one term till 1890. Here 
he achieved greatness in work, in influence, and 
in reputation. 

His first speech in Congress was made on the 
tariff and his last upon the same subject, and he 
made many other speeches in those notable de- 
bates on that national issue. This has caused 
many people to regard this as his specialty and 
think that he did not talk of much else. Nothing 

Speeches is farther from the facts. Read his speeches on 
"Payment of Pensions," "Purchase of Government 
Bonds," "Death of John A. Logan," "Civil 
Service," "Direct Tax," and "Hawaiian Treaty." 
Add to these the great variety of subjects he dis- 
cussed outside of Congress on all kinds of occa- 
sions, such as "The American Farmer," "Our 
Public Schools," "New England and the Future," 
"The American Workingman," "An Auxiliary to 
Religion," and scores of other subjects, before 
clubs, literary circles, on lecture platforms, before 
colleges and universities, and one is amazed at 
the vast amount of work he could endure. He 
had the culture of the typical, best American. 



WILLIAM McKINLEY S13 

He read widely, criticised carefully, classified 
patiently, and retained accurately a vast store of 
general knowledge. These gave him the respect 
and retained for him the confidence of the strong 
and great men whom he encountered in Congress 
and in Washington. 

His administration is a high demonstration of Administra- 
ability in the field of the most honorable practical ^^^^ 
politics. His two terms as Governor of the great 
State of Ohio were masterpieces of good govern- 
ment. They did not furnish, either to competitors 
in his own party or to enemies in the opposing 
party, any clubs with which to maim him in the 
race for national honors. It is difficult to find 
cleaner or more satisfactory administrations than , - 
he gave us in the White House. He found the 
country impoverished, the treasury overdrawn, and 
the national debt bounding up by the hundred 
millions. He left it in a most prosperous con- 
dition, furnaces blazing, exports multiplying, labor 
abundant, wages unprecedented, and the whole ^ 

land at peace. The strong business men of the 
country gathered about him and indorsed his 
policy. He quieted the mutterings in his own 
party, reconciled all factions, attached to himself 
personal rivals, mollified the asperities of political 
opponents, made many of them contented with his 
policy, and most of them warm personal friends. 
He so compacted his party and disarmed his 



and South 



214 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

political opponents that Congress was ready to do 
his bidding and an earnest desire was almost equal 
to an enacted law. 
United North He pontooncd the bloody chasm, making the 
nation one, more successfully than any other man 
had done since the old nullification debates in the 
days of Calhoun and the agitation of the slavery 
question. His journeys and speeches in the South 
allayed much of this old prejudice, and his manage- 
ment of the Spanish War drew the sections to- 
gether. Leading Confederate officers led the boys 
who had worn the gray and their sons back into 
the ranks under the old flag, and marched with 
the sons of both of the old armies against a com- 
mon foe. The Confederate mother whose son 
went with Lee into the Spanish War and who 
wrote him never to darken her door again, but 
when she read how the boys went up San Juan 
Hill wept and reflected and wrote her son, *'You 
can come home now; I have a United States flag 
over the door,'* was only the representative of a 
great class. One private in a New York regiment 
was the only man in his regiment to volunteer for 
the Spanish War. When asked why he enlisted he 
said, "Boys, I must go. My father was a Con- 
federate soldier. When he was dying he said to 
me, *I fought as best I could to destroy the old 
flag. Now, if that flag is ever assailed, I want 
you to fight for it. Swear you will.' I swore I 



v 



WILLIAM McKINLEY 216 

would, and I am going to do it." That man 
represented a host who love the country and recog- 
nize the new condition of things. The wisdom 
of McKinley's administration made these revela- 
tions to the country and to the world. He has 
made us one nation, and woe to the nation that 
forgets it. This alone would give William Mc- 
Kinley a pedestal upon which he can sit secure 
in his fame to the latest generation. 

Statesmanship must vindicate itself by results. Statesman- 
A surgeon said, "We had a splendid operation in ®^p 

mcfl/SiircQ 

our hospital to-day. You ought to have seen it." by results 
Some one asked, "Did the man live.^" The sur- 
geon answered, "No, they always die in that 
operation, but it was a splendid operation." That 
surgeon could not apply his rule to statesmanship. 
That must succeed. Measured by this rule, 
McKinley's statesmanship is of a high order. 

When he went to the White House we were a 
moderate sea power in these Western waters, con- 
tented with our coast and lakes. It is no secret 
that Chile, after her war with Peru, felt able to 
chase us off the sea. She did not attempt it. But 
you could not talk with a Chilean naval com- 
mander without seeing that he was certain of their 
ability to resist us. To-day things have changed. 
Once we were a young nation, a mere boy among 
the nations. We stretched our limbs in the wilder- 
ness of the western hemisphere and wondered at 



216 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

the great old nations beyond the sea. They 
patronized us and ridiculed us and pretended to 
despise us. We kept chopping down our forests, 
digging down our mountains, plowing up our fields, 
building up our defenses, and saving up our 
margins. The mother country assumed to inspect 
us a little too much and came over here to punish 
us. But we got angry and told her she was not 
our mother, that we did not recognize her even 
as a stepmother; so we boxed her ears and sent 
her home to meditate on the difficulties of punish- 
ing a half-grown boy who has been shifting for 
himself for a time. 

The nation's We had a splendid father, George Washington. 

growth -yy^ ^j.g ^g proud of him as it is possible to be. 

May his name never be spoken except with the 
most profound reverence! He suited us perfectly. 
His wisdom was inspired. It fitted our youth. 
Nothing could have been better. He said, "Be- 
ware of foreign entanglements." This was just the 
garment we most needed. It fitted us like a bib. 
We put it on and held on to it. So we stayed 
at home and hugged our bib. Once the pirates 
of Algiers were defying all the Old World, and 
even interfered with our merchants. Then we laid 
aside our bib and went over there and taught them 
not to meddle with the Stars and Stripes or we 
would give them the stripes till they saw the stars. 
After that we sailed home, put on our bib agam. 



WILLIAM McKINLEY 217 

and stayed in our own seas. We sailed around 
in the South Atlantic, and wore our bib. We were 
perfectly contented with our coast line and neigh- 
boring seas. We grew and grew, till our bib looked 
like a patch on our breast, but we held onto it, 
expecting to wear it forever and stay in our South 
Atlantic waters forever. But on February 15, 
1898, the Spanish touched off a magazine under 
the Maine while we were sleeping in Havana 
Harbor. We went up into the air. Then we came 
down everywhere, to stay. Our bib was blown off . 
by that explosion, and we have been compelled to 
take up a man's burden and do a man's work. 

The three greatest strides the race has made Three 
since the tragedy on Calvary are: First, the con- epoch-making 
version of Saint Paul. That opened the door to 
us Gentiles and widened Christianity out from 
being the religious cult of the Jews in that little 
subjugated province at the foot of the Mediter- 
ranean, to becoming the religion of all the races 
and of all the ages. Second, the firing on Fort 
Sumter. That took up this conquering, Anglo- 
Saxon race, and baptizing them in blood has made 
them fit for the highest uses. Being now free, we 
can make others free. Since Fort Sumter we have 
a liberty and life worthy of the highest propaganda. 
We are begetting freedom and free constitutions 
everywhere. And, third, the blowing up of the 
Maine. That made these American Saxons one. 



218 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

We scold each other and quarrel a little yet; but 
we are like wrestlers on a swift vessel. We may 
at times wrestle for dominion in small things, but 
we go, and go together. We are one nation. This 
Spanish War, a war against the hereditary enemies 
of mankind, made all these Saxon families essen- 
tially one. Prince Henry's visit was not possible 
before Spain went out of the western hemisphere. 
Now Edward VII and William II and our Rough 
Rider, Teddy the First and the Last, can put 
their heads together and dictate peace to the rest 
of the world. Not a soldier anywhere on the 
earth can lift a foot without their consent. We 
have been lifted up into one of the great world 
powers that must be reckoned with in any settle- 
ment of boundary lines or spheres of influence. 
Once in great councils all eyes were fixed on 
Bismarck; now Uncle Sam is much observed. 
Where he sits is the head of the table. 
McKiniey's McKiulcy's highest statesmanship is typed in his 
diplomacy diplomacy. Statesmanship at times has seemed 
like the crutches with which weak administrators 
have hobbled out of the path of progress. It has 
always been so where statesmanship has been 
made up of the false schemes of tricksters and 
mere politicians. And diplomacy has long stood 
for duplicity. Napoleon's prince of diplomats, 
V Talleyrand, said that language was the means of 
concealing our ideas. Diplomats have been boat- 



WILLIAM McKINLEY 219 

men, looking one way but going the other. Salis- 
bury listens carefully to all the Russian Minister 
says, in order to know what Russia does not 
intend to do. McKinley invented a new states- 
manship and a new diplomacy, which set forth 
exactly what he thought ought to be done and 
how he intended to do it. His statesmanship and 
diplomacy were his seven-league boots with which 
he strode into the center of things and into the 
future. 

His diplomacy in Peking exhibited the highest integrity 
statecraft. He first and alone comprehended the o^^*^^ 
necessity of preserving the integrity of China. A 
long war between China and the Western nations 
meant the partition of China to pay the bills. 
This meant the advancement of Russia, and the 
retirement of England from India, a new lease of 
life to heathenism, and the exclusion of the United 
States from the one remaining great market of the 
world, the Far East. It was the greatest game 
ever played by diplomats on the world's chess- 
board. There were most weighty reasons why the 
Great Powers should parcel out Chinese territory. 
The cheap iron ore and cheap coal that enabled 
our manufacturers to sell their pig-iron and steel 
rails in London and Berlin and Paris demonstrated 
that these nations must yield commercial suprem- 
acy to the United States. These iron pigs and 
steel rails were like the first flakes of snow after 



220 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

the battle of Borodino outside the walls of Moscow, 
that taught the old Bonaparte that events had 
deserted him and that his destiny was fixed. The 
seizure of nearly all the available seaports of 
China and the extension of spheres of influence 
awakened the ancient sleeping Heathen Giant. 
The Boxer troubles were only the foam on the 
surface of a deeper tide. To dismember China 
would involve two great unmeasured calamities, 
world-wide and ages long: first, the prolongation 
of heathenism by the century — ^for evangelization 
fares better under Chinese rule than under Russian 
repression; second, the narrowing of the world's 
marts, by the loss of the most-favored-nation 
clause. This means the closing of our factories 
and the cooling of our furnaces in the not remote 
future. This means mobs of hungry men instead 
of groups of prosperous workmen. And this means 
standing armies and multiplied armories instead of 
rattling factories and thriving villages. McKinley 
had the ken of the statesman and the vision of the 
prophet. His objective point was the integrity of 
China. 

The first move was the shifting of a pawn, or 
at most a knight, on the board. It was to keep 
the Chinese Minister at Washington, the continu- 
ance of diplomatic relations with China. True, 
Chinese soldiers were uniting with the Boxers, and 
the Empress Dowager encouraged and rewarded 



WILLIAM McKINLEY 221 

them and promoted the enemies of the "foreign 
devils.'* Still McKinley called it a riot and main- 
tained peace with the Chinese government. He 
brought all the Powers to the same ground. This 
eliminated fourteen of the nineteen provinces of 
China. This averted a long war and narrowed the 
damages so much that they could be settled in 
money instead of land. The long struggle of the 
Powers to secure ends inimical to all interests but 
their own made the work of that settlement most 
diflScult. In the end it greatly exalted American 
influence. 

The "open door," which McKinley kept open The 
with the full weight of his presence, means the "^'p^'^ ^^^' 
vast increase of the wealth and power of this 
country. On one side of us lies Europe. She has 
poured her wealth into America. Now, to the 
west of us lie Japan, Korea, and China, with 
five hundred millions of people, three times the 
population of Europe, one third of the human race. 
Soon, long before the end of this century, these 
will be Christian lands. They will demand the 
commerce of Christian nations. Great cities must 
spring up in the path of this trade. Our great 
deserts will be crowded by industrious millions. 
Cheap electrical power will lift the water onto 
those rich plains, till blooming like a garden they 
will support a population as dense as is now 
supported in the valley of the Ganges. The open 



PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

door, the door kept open by McKinley's statecraft 
and diplomacy, means wealth and multiplied bless- 
ings to the thousand millions of freemen that shall 
yet cultivate this continent and dictate peace to the 
Old World. 
Reciprocity Reciprocity is the watchword of the twentieth 
century. McKinley, in his last round of the 
sentries, gave out this password. By it the nations 
will pass in and out of the common camp. It is 
the slot in which protection can work without 
straining the machinery. It exchanges exclusive- 
ness for neighborliness and brotherhood. Pro- 
claimed from the Pan-American Fair, it struck 
and fitted the Americas from pole to pole. These 
continents are bound together. They face a com- 
mon destiny. They are linked by the great law 
of supply and demand. Lying on opposite sides 
of the equator, they command all the seasons and 
all the crops all the time. When we are in the 
cold grip of winter South America is in the lap 
of summer. When we are enjoying the smiles of 
summer they are struggling with the blasts of 
winter. Soon we shall have direct and rapid steam- 
ship lines plying from continent to continent. 
Soon railroad express trains will unite us. Then 
with refrigerator steamers and cars we can trade 
as adjoining towns. When we are in winter they 
can pour their spring and summer products into 
our marts, and when they are wrapped in winter 



WILLIAM McKINLEY nS 

we can pour our fresh vegetables and products 
into their lap. Thus teetering across the equator, 
we can multiply the blessings of each and grow 
rich and strong together. Reciprocity means that 
South America, a great continent, with as much 
arable land as has North America — for it is narrow 
in the frigid zone and wide in the temperate and 
torrid zones and has a table-land that carries the 
temperate zone within eight degrees of the equator 
— that South America and North America shall 
help each other. Thus the semi-temperate belt is 
extended upon which both corn and oats can be 
raised as well as cotton and rice, and the pro- 
ductive power of the southern continent is brought 
up to compete with the northern continent. Thus 
united, we can secure a great future. 

There has come to us out of the long past a A magnificent 
Statement that the swan in the night before it dies ^^S^cy 
*'''^ sings a wonderful song. This may be a myth. -"^ 
But it is no myth that William McKinley the last 
day of his public life gave a wonderful utterance. 
It was a magnificent legacy. That last speech, 
delivered at the Fair, will pass down in the history 
of this government like a clear, sharp bas-relief, cut 
on a precious stone, showing President McKinley 
with his face toward the future. Just protection 
and reciprocity, arbitration and not war, commerce 
and not slaughter, one family of nations, brothers 
and not enemies — this is a magnificent legacy. 



224 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

Greatness m McKinley's, like Grant's, fame depends upon 
achievements '«|^jjg arduous greatness of things achieved." It 
does not depend upon the accident of an assassin's 
bullet. That one bullet could reverse the ballots 
of eighty millions of citizens, but it could not secure 
permanent fame. The depths of our hearts are 
powerfully moved by the barbarous and brutal way 
in which our honored and much-loved President 
was torn from us. We feel like children about 
the casket of a father. But this is not fame. All 
this will drop out of sight as our aching hearts, 
one by one, in that near to-morrow, drop into the 
open grave. We will melt away into the receding 
past like evening mists. Other generations will 
soon come who do not know those heartaches. 
These are not fame. Fame rests on achievements. 
A new lease in the life of a nation, a bend in the 
stream of human history, an epoch from which 
nations and civilizations reckon and take their 
bearings — to cause these to be is to secure fame. 
To end the Spanish empire and cruelty in the 
western hemisphere, and to found the American 
empire in the eastern, will grow greater through 
the centuries. To preserve the open door and 
autonomy of the Chinese empire, and thus hasten 
the Christianization of those multiplied millions, is 
to secure a pedestal for permanent fame. To 
project a new world power into the affairs of the 
world just when the presence of such a power is 



WILLIAM McKINLEY 225 

necessary for the perpetuation of British rule in 
India, and thus secure a new lease of life for the 
British empire, the bulwark of Protestantism, is to 
leave footprints on the highway of advancing 
civilization which the dews of many centuries will 
not obliterate. So much at least is secure. 

Pericles said, "I do not know how to play the 
fiddle, but I do know how to make a small town 
over into a great city." McKinley might have 
said, *'I do not know how to braid gold lace, but 
I do know how to make a western nation over 
into a great world power." 

Great as McKinley was, and solid as is the Goodness 
foundation of his fame, resting as it does on his 
achievements, yet his greatest characteristic was 
his goodness. This struck all who approached 
him. It shone in his genial face. He was no 
goody-goody man. He was business always, and 
his goodness was a part of it. It shone like a 
candle, because it was lighted. He was not one 
of those lighthouse keepers who, when they have 
kindled the lamps in the lighthouse, go and ring 
the bell to let people know that they have so 
kindled the lamps. His light shone itself. He did 
not shine it. 

His mother said, *'William was always a good 
boy. I do not believe that he ever told me a lie." 
He always wanted to do good to men and bless 
them. Every little occasion was improved. A 



226 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

bird-dog will dart off the moment he crosses the 
track of a bird. It is his gift, his instinct, his 
nature. So McKinley scented a chance to do 
good. A page in Congress was careless and tricky 
and was dismissed. He was in trouble. McKinley 
took him and talked to him an hour on his mis- 
takes, and on the boy's promising to do right and 
be honest he secured his reinstatement. The boy 
kept his word. At odd times McKinley advised 
and encouraged him. He was finally rewarded by 
seeing the boy a vigorous, useful minister. 
Helped In the fighting at Antietam, McKinley's regiment 

comrades ^g^g pushed for two days without rest and with 
little to eat- McKinley was in the commissary 
service and did what was never done before. He 
cooked meats and prepared coffee, and took them 
W to the front under most diflScult conditions. He 
caught and hitched up a pair of mules and drove 
them forward till the mules were shot, then con- 
scripted another team and served the hot meat 
and hot coffee at the front on the firing line, in 
the heat of the battle. The exhausted men cheered 
for Billy Mac, took new heart, and pushed the 
fight. Anything to help the men. 

He would give up his dry tent to a sick soldier 
and stand in the rain himself. He would loan his 
blanket to a soldier who needed it. In crossing 
the Salt Pond Mountain the roads were almost 
impassable. It was a heavy drag at the best. 



WILLIAM McKINLEY 22T 

McKinley would loan his horse to some exhausted 
soldier. Once he helped a poor old contraband 
woman who was following the army. She had 
several bundles and three or four children. The 
little ones cried. McKinley carried one of the 
children as much as a mile, and helped the colored 
mother over more than one ditch. Such a thing 
shows a man's heart. There is nothing put on 
about that. 

When he was working on the Tariff Bill a Conscience 
Democratic manufacturer came to him and said, *^°^^ ^^^^ 
"My Democratic Congressman will not hear or 
help me. I have no claims on you, but I want to 
represent my business to you." McKinley told 
him to bring his figures. He brought out his own 
figures and compared them and worked with that 
man till midnight, then thanked the man and said, 
"You have helped me. It would have been wrong 
as we had it." 

Once in Congress, Samuel J. Randall, then old 
and feeble, was delivering a carefully prepared 
speech on the Mills Bill. His time expired. Mem- 
bers objected to his proceeding. He held up his 
withered old hand and begged for time. Men 
objected. Then McKinley, in a clear, strong 
voice, caught the chairman's ear and said, "I 
yield to the Democratic gentleman from Pennsyl- 
vania out of my time all that he may need to 
finish his speech." Both parties applauded. That 



228 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

is the act of a good man, and it takes also a great 
man to do such a thing. 
Ambition to His wholc life was keyed to help his fellows. The 
be helpful purpose of his years of work on the Tariff Bill 
was to so perfect it that it would bring prosperity 
and happiness to his countrymen. A Russian 
oflBcer was called across the empire in winter to 
bring certain information to the government. After 
weeks of sledging, night and day, he reached Saint 
Petersburg. He sat in the anteroom and fell asleep. 
He was so exhausted that it was impossible to 
awaken him. The oflficers walked him about, 
burned his arms, tried every way to rouse him, 
but in vain. The sledgeman, learning the situa- 
tion, said, "I can awaken him." He seated him 
as in the sledge, and then crawled up on one side 
and called in his ear, "Count, the sledges are 
ready.** Instantly the man was on his feet, wide 
? , awake. He had locked himself in on that com- 
bination. The combination that always held 
McKinley was the chance to bless his fellows. 
Cry "Help!" in his ear, and he was awake all over. 

"Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!) 
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace. 
And saw, within the moonlight in his room. 
Making it rich and like a lily in bloom. 
An Angel, writing in a book of gold. 
Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold. 
And to the presence in the room he said, 
'What writest thou ?' The vision raised its head 



WILLIAM McKINLEY 229 

And, with a look made all of sweet accord. 
Answered: 'The names of those who love the Lord/ 
'And is mine one ?' said Abou. *Nay, not so,' 
Replied the Angel. Abou spoke more low. 
But cheerily still, and said: 'I pray thee, then. 
Write me as one who loves his fellow men.' 

"The Angel wrote, and vanished. The next night 
It came again with a great wakening light. 
And showed the names whom love of God had blest. 
And lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest." 

His goodness rose into the highest ranges of Sacrificed to 
character. He followed his principles into private tamtam 
life, preferring to be defeated with his principles 
rather than to win without them. He went into 
poverty to keep step with his honesty. He turned 
his back on the nomination to the Presidency in 
order to keep company with his honor. In 1888 
McKinley went to the convention pledged to 
support John Sherman. Some of the Ohio dele- 
gation voted for McKinley. He sprang to his feet, 
faced the convention which was turning to him, 
and shouted, "Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen: I 
cannot remain silent with honor. I demand that 
no delegate who would not cast reflection upon 
me shall cast a ballot for me." This checked the 
tide, as all knew that he would never take the .^ 
nomination if it even shadowed his honor. Again, 
in 1892, he was chairman of the convention, and 
the cry was started for McKinley. The convention 
was wild for him. He was pledged to Harrison. 



virtues 



S30 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

He refused to let the movement have a hearing, 
and declared that he was not a candidate. This 
is a virile goodness that no winter of neglect can 
kill and no fires of temptation can blight. 
Public We must pause to mention some of his public 

virtues. Perhaps the highest public virtue of the 
citizen is patriotism. As it is certain that no man 
can be true to his God who is not true to his 
friends, so it is difficult to understand how a man 
can be true to his God who is not true to his coun- 
try, when that country is blest with just laws and 
free institutions. Patriotism is the religion of the 
state. In all ages men have counted it as essential 
to every great character. His enlistment before he 
was eighteen, and his long and brilliant service 
in the Civil War, never hesitating in the path of 
duty, elevate him among the best in this constant 
inspiration for service. When admonished against 
some course he proposed to follow, that it would 
make him unpopular, he answered, *'If I can 
only serve through one term with credit to myself 
and honor to the country, it will be all I ask." 
This patriotism was made conspicuous by the 
courage which never failed him, either in the ranks 
or alone. A high British authority on military 
matters affirms that "any people uniformed, 
drilled, and in line have courage." They are so 
surrounded that it is easier to keep in line than 
to break out. But to stand alone on the picket 



WILLIAM McKINLEY 231 

line, within range of sharpshooters, or go alone 
along the firing line, requires something, courage 
or heroism, call it what you will, that is not the 
natural possession of every soldier. 

With all his promptness and executive ability. Gentleness 
he had also undisturbed evenness and gentleness of 
temperament. He was always gentle and kind. 
He was so simple that his public honors did not 
disturb his simplicity. He loved the common 
people, and was fond of serving and helping them. 
He observed the children of the people. One 
minute before he was shot he was shaking hands 
with a little child. 

His absolute honesty was seen in his surrender Honesty 
of all his property. His wife added her estate for 
his obligations. It was only to help a friend that 
he used his name, but that name must not be 
soiled. It is good to see such honesty. When a 
man takes his wife out of a home of luxury and 
then, for the sake of honesty, to help another, . 
walks with that wife down into poverty, to start 
again in the hard hand-to-hand struggle for exist- 
ence, then there is no doubt about the sincerity 
and elevation of his honesty and honor. 

There are some strange links connecting our The bond of 
martyred Presidents. The bond is only on the martyrdom 
surface. But the bond of martyrdom sets them 
apart by themselves. 

In 1890 McKinley was present at the ceremonies 



PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

connected with the dedication of a Garfield memo- 
rial on Decoration Day. He was called out by 
the crowd and said, "No President since Wash- 
ington, Lincoln, and Grant has been closer to the 
hearts of the American people than James A. 
Garfield. I heard him twenty-four years ago 
pronounce a eulogy upon the lamented Lincoln. 
He used these words, and now let me apply them 
to him, the second martyr in the holy and heroic 
succession." Let me now quote them for President 
McKinley, the third martyr in the "holy and 
heroic succession": 

"Divinely gifted man. 
Whose life in low estate began. 
And on a simple village green; 
Who breaks through birth's invidious bar. 
And grasps the skirts of happy chance, 
And breasts the blows of circumstance. 
And grapples with his evil star; 
Who made by force his merit known, 
y And lived to clutch the golden keys. 

To mold a mighty state's decrees, 
And shape the whispers of the throne; 
And, moving up, from higher to higher. 
Becomes, on Fortune's crowning slope. 
The pillar of a people's hope. 
The center of a world's desire." 

Exaltation His wholc life was an exaltation of the home. 

of the home jje kept it swcct and pure. It seems under his 

care like a dream of Eden. First, in filial love 



WILLIAM McKINLEY 233 

to his wise and godly mother. Never a day passed 
without his visit to his mother when he was at 
home, and when absent he wrote to her every day. i^ 
The love she bore him was reciprocated. It was 
one of the features the people were wont to study 
and admire. The better nature of every man was 
drawn toward the busy public servant who never 
forgot his mother. 

"Mother" is the sweetest word in the language. Love of 
How our hearts turn back toward those sacred "^^^^^ 
memories, the wrinkled old face, the thin gray 
hair, the shriveled hands, the bowed form! How 
glad we would be to have those wrinkled brown 
hands on our heads once more! They would 
make our old hearts leap with the joy of youth 
again. This man cherished his mother to the 
utmost. From the Governor's office, or from his 
desk in the Capitol, or from the chair of state in 
the White House, every day, always, went a letter 
or a telegram to cheer and comfort her. 

Many a time the people, looking upon him help- 
ing her to the church or walking with her down 
the aisle to the communion, have thought of 
Washington and his mother, and have opened 
wide their hearts to let this man sit in the same 
sacred chamber with the "Father of his Country.'* 

But this was not the only touch sanctifying and Home 
exalting the American home. The home is an *^^""^tof 

A 1 S ... T • • A government 

Anglo-Saxon mstitution. It is emmently an Amer- 



v' 



234) PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

ican institution. The home is the unit of our 
government. The public land is held for families 
and homes. We are not a nation of tramps, but 
of families. It is in our blood to make a home. 
We will go out and settle anywhere on the land 
where we can make a home. Some races must 
live in cities, in gangs. With a chair on the broad 
sidewalk of the capital, and a closet on some fifth 
floor where they can sleep, some races are happy. 
Not so with the Saxon, and especially the American. 
We stick in the soil and make a home. 
Makes us This makcs us colonizers. This conquers the 

colonizers earth. The Latin races once had India; now the 
Saxon is there. The Latin races once had the 
New World; now the Saxon is there. The Saxon 
is planting his homes in South America, till he 
controls the commerce. His laws and money and 
business are much in evidence in Europe, in Africa, 
in Australia. It is the triumph of the home. 
It makes us colonizers. Gamblers and pirates and 
freebooters are always poor. Colonizing nations 
grow strong and rich. In the old Norse mythology 
Thor is struggling with the serpent that encircles 
the earth. When he is exhausted and faint he 
touches the earth and that renews his strength. 
So these colonizers, these home-builders, touch the 
earth and are renewed for the time-long conflict 
against the serpent. 

The American is a home-builder. President 



WILLIAM McKINLEY S35 

McKinley has exalted womanhood and the home. 
Many a young couple seeing the tenderness and 
continued courtship of this great man and that , 
sweet, beautiful woman, that nestles so close to his 
side, have caught its contagion and have gone 
forth to make another home. 

William McKinley married Miss Ida Saxton, Mrs. Mc- 
January 25, 1871. We have thought of Mrs. ^^^^ 
McKinley as gentle and inoffensive, clinging to 
him, turning her sweet face up to his strong, 
tender one, and so it has seemed. He has always 
been on duty, or pleasure, by her side. Never a 
day when absent, in which he did not write her 
once or twice and telegraph her often, usually 
every two hours, knowing she needed him. In 
Columbus, as Governor, he boarded in a hotel 
opposite the Capitol building. He never entered 
that building by day that he did not stop on the 
steps and lift his hat, a signal, to his wife watching . 
him from her window. It was known as the 
McKinley signal. She traveled with him when it 
was possible. She sat by his side at the table in 
the White House. They spent hours side by side 
on one of the great sofas there, and the other day, 
when she took her farewell of the White House, 
she was led over to that sofa and kissed it. It 
and the memory were all she had left. 

All the years she has been his companion. His coworker 
familiar with his great enterprises, talking over his 



236 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

heavy work with him, pouring the light of her 
woman's instinct into the dark places, often leav- 
ing a path of light for him to follow. Her health 
broke with the loss of her children and never re- 
turned, but her instincts never flagged and her 
absorbing interest in all his great work never 
relaxed. She steadily prompted him to his high 
purposes. She said many years ago that he would 
be President of the United States, and she never 
weakened in her faith or was bewildered in her 
visions. As we watch these lovers through these 
wonderful years, we see a holy light settling down 
from Heaven upon the American home. Possibly 
this work of exalting the home may endure in its 
blessed influences as long as the widened borders 
of our empire. 
A Christian It is hardly necessary to refer to this man's 
gentleman Christian life. We cannot touch him but we feel 
the inspiration of a Christian life in its best and 
most practical form. Born of Christian parents, 
nourished under the Word of God, he never looked 
upon himself except as under obligation to God. 
\,/ At the age of fourteen he was soundly converted 
' and joined the Methodist Episcopal Church. He 
constantly held its faith, used its means of grace, 
attended its services, and labored for its advance- 
ment. He studied the Bible, claimed its promises, 
and enjoyed the peace of communion with God. 
His whole life exemplified the life of his Master. 



WILLIAM McKINLEY 237 

He never treated any man unkindly. He was 
always gentle, showing the spirit of Christ. Even 
when he was shot, as he looked into the eyes of 
the assassin and surprise gave way to the con- 
sciousness of what had been done, there was no 
sign of anger. He wondered why the man wanted 
to kill him. Then pity filled his face till tears 
stood in both his calm, clear eyes. We all remember 
the wonderful things that came up out of his '^ 
heart: "Do not tell my wife" — the old lifelong 
care for her; *'Love is stronger than Death is 
strong." Then, looking at his own hand red with Novindictive- 
his own heart's blood, he saw on the floor before ^ess against 
him the assassin lying in his blood, and he said, 
"Let no one hurt him." We cannot but think 
of Him round whose cross we danced in coarse 
mockery, clanking our chains which he came to 
break in his face, as he bent his pierced hands 
over us, saying, "Father, forgive them, for they 
know not what they do." Then the unselfish 
regret, "I am sorry to be the occasion of harming 
your Fair." No man is stagy in such an hour. 
Those wonderful words bubbled up out of his 
deepest nature. 

On the surgeon's table he wondered why the Resignation 
man wanted to shoot him. No word of reproach, 
only surprise and pity. As he was taking the 
ether and was sinking into unconsciousness. Dr. 
Mann saw President McKinley's lips moving, and. 



238 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

stooping to catch what might be his last words, 
he heard him distinctly say, "Thy kingdom come. 
Thy will be done." Later, when the end did come, 
he said, "Good-bye, all. Good-bye. It is God's 
way. His will be done, not ours." With these 
words of gentle submission on his lips, he passed 
on to behold the King in his glory. 
His life Providence writes his plans upon the broad 

ahving heavens in characters so large that few men, if 

argument ^ 

any, are able to read them. As high as the heavens 
are above the earth, so high are God's ways above 
our ways. Yet he comes out to us at most un- 
expected turns. While men are gazing into the 
heavens bewildered with the heat-lightning of 
higher criticism, God exhibits at our feet, on the 
very floor of science itself, his unanswerable 
argument, the supernatural mosaic, made out of 
the lives of his servants and copied after the pattern 
in the heavens. The facts of such a life as Mc- 
Kinley's must be handled by any science that deals 
with the subject. For any science that would 
ignore any single fact in its field would wreck 
all its theories and cease to be a science. This 
argument from his life has swept over the country 
almost as widely as the sacred hymns that bubbled 
from his purple lips. A lawyer in New York told 
me of a lawyer who visited him in his office and 
said, "I am an agnostic. I do not believe in God. 
There cannot be any God. But when I see so 



WILLIAM McKINLEY 

strong and clear a man as McKinley go down to 
death with such confidence and assurance, I am 
compelled to say that I may be wrong. He must 
be right. I must review the situation." Dr. 
Bloom, a prominent physician of Philadelphia, 
says that to his own knowledge and in his own 
experience not less than twenty skeptics have 
renounced skepticism on account of the Chris- 
tian fortitude and courageous death of President 
McKinley. These living stones make the walls of 
the city coming down from God out of heaven, 
and they are the defenses of the truth. Let the 
comma chasers — men who spend their lives chasing 
a comma around the tail of a pronoun, trying to 
land it — go on with their heat-lightning. While 
the Church can produce even some fruit like 
McKinley the ax will not be laid to the roots of 
this tree. And while our free institutions can 
produce such patriots as William McKinley there 
will never be room on our soil for a throne or for 
the man on horseback. 

It is the glory of American institutions that they Opportunity 
pass the magnet over every particle of the soil for leadership 

^ o •/ 1 ^ always open 

and draw up every atom of mmeral. ihey are 
not confined to a few deposits of ore. That is why 
the output of the true metal is so great. It has 
been the misfortune of England in her African 
War that she has been compelled to select her 
leaders from the limited supply in the aristocracy. 



240 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

where indulgence begets effeminacy instead of 
heroism. In our Republic every path leads to the 
front. It may have the poor man's cottage at one 
end, but it may also have the White House at the 
other end. The genius of our liberties, like the 
sun, shines upon the mountain side and in the 
lowly valley. It warms and quickens the oak on 
the spur of the crag and cheers the tiniest blade 
of grass by the low creeping rivulet. That genius 
of our liberties walks throughout all our borders 
hunting for heroes. She cannot be deceived by 
the tin models at one end of society, nor by the 
rags at the other. I see her yonder, picking her 
way through the wilderness of a new continent, 
and taking a young surveyor by the hand, as if 
he were her betrothed. I see her yonder, walking 
by the cabin of the frontiersman, and leading away 
a tall, lank boy. There, in a leather store in an 
obscure inland Western town, she finds another 
boy. There, by the towpath, she has picked 
another lad. And, yonder, in a little Ohio village, 
she has found another. She leads these lads to 
the White House. Then, standing before all the 
monarchies of all the aristocracies of the world, 
she holds up Washington, and Lincoln, and Grant, 
and Garfield, and McKinley, saying, *'See what I 
can do. I have made these out of the common 
people — richer treasures than can be found among 
all the crown jewels of all the ages." 



/ 



WILLIAM McKINLEY 241 

See that chemist, Nature, picking up a handful Gems in 
of slime from the gutter. It seems to be only co^^o^^ soil 
slime, composed of clay and sand and soot and 
moisture. Watch the transformation as the chemist 
touches the slime with the wand of his genius. 
The clay catches the azure of the sky and throbs 
a deep-chested sapphire. The sand catches the 
soul of the sunset and earth and sea and air, and 
the opal reflects all the colors of the rainbow. The 
soot catches the spirit of the noonday sun, and 
the diamond scintillates all the colors of the uni- 
verse. And the moisture rounds into the sparkling 
dewdrop. So watch the genius of our free insti- 
tutions, touching with her magic wand a handful of 
soil called the common people. Here stands up the 
matchless patriot, the Father of his Country. Here 
steps forth the great Emancipator, whom all the 
world loves and venerates. Here marches out the 
Field Marshal of all the ages, and all the world 
wonders. And here in our midst sits the Hero 
of Peace and the Angel of Prosperity, while all 
the races join the universal brotherhood. Mon- 
archy may make great institutions, but the Republic 
makes great men. "What a piece of work is a 
man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! 
in form and moving how express and admirable! 
in action how like an angel! in apprehension how 
like a god ! the beauty of the world ! the paragon of 
animals!" 



242 



PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 



Freedom 
from faults 



Whence his 
greatness ? 



•/ 



How shall we picture this last great man so as 
to see hira on all sides? How can we exhaust 
Nature's alchemy so as to know all the elements 
mixed and balanced in him! We find in him 
integrity without severity, sincerity without auster- 
ity, gentleness without weakness, meekness without 
stupidity, patience without indolence, dignity with- 
out coldness, scholarship without pedantry, elo- 
quence without ostentation, courage without 
rashness, caution without cowardice, liberality 
without prodigality, prudence without parsimony, 
reason without infidelity, and faith without 
superstition. 

"The elements 
So mixed in him that Nature might stand up 
And say to all the world. This is a man!" 

"He was a man, take him for all in all, 
We shall not look upon his like again." 

Do you ask whence his greatness? Study the 
men that faced the fires at Smithfield, and the 
men who fought under Cromwell, and the men 
that waded out up to their armpits from the 
Mayflower and prayed on Plymouth Rock, chin- 
deep in the snow; study the men who marched 
from Bunker Hill to Valley Forge and won liberty 
for mankind from Concord to Yorktown; study 
this life from the prayer room of Nancy McKinley, 
in Niles, Ohio, to the room of triumph in the 
Milburn residence on Delaware Avenue, Buffalo, 



WILLIAM McKINLEY 243 

from which he went up to report to God, and in 
all this you may find whence came his greatness. 
It was warmed in by the lips of maternal love. 
It was prayed in by a mother's anxious heart. It 
was worked in by the close economies of tireless 
industry. It was rubbed in by protracted drilling. 
It was worn in by long marches. It was steeped 
in by the dews of night. It was pressed in by the 
long watches on the picket line. This is whence 
came his greatness, where the veteran found his 
power. 

A son, loving, thoughtful, obedient, he secured 
the blessings of a happy mother and the blessing 
of Almighty God. A husband, devoted, faithful, 
pure, tender, and watchful as the stars, he exalted 
the American home. A soldier, brave, vigilant, i^ 
prompt, he performed every duty with alacrity and 
courage. A scholar, thoughtful, industrious, he 
was practical, mastering the departments of knowl- 
edge involved in his pursuits. A leader in Congress, 
he illumined every subject he discussed with the 
fullness and accuracy of his information and 
secured the attention and retained the confidence 
of his colleagues by the clearness of his statements 
and the candor of his convictions. An exalted 
politician, he harmonized his party, conciliated his \y 
rivals, pacified his opponents, and justified his 
measures by their success. A Christian, he illus- 
trated the saving power of grace, and retained the 



244 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

favor of God. A man, he represented the typical 
American on the Mount of Transfiguration. He 
has gone into history, to be catalogued with 
Washington and Lincoln and Grant, and to be 
loved and honored forever. As a nation, we are 
proud of so many supremely great men. As a 
Church, we say. Blessed be Almighty God who 
hath matured such a character to show forth the 
power of his grace to transform and save in every 
walk of life. 




GEORGE WASHINGTON 



WASHINGTON-A PROVIDENTIAL 

MAN 



This brief address was delivered on the occasion of the celebra- 
tion of Washington's Birthday before the Hamilton Club of Chicago. 
Bishop Fowler never regarded it as more than a sketch, intending 
some time to add to it and make a full lecture upon the character 
and life of Washington. It is, however, so beautiful a portrayal 
that it did not seem right to omit it from this volume. 



245 



WASHINGTON-A PROVIDENTAL 

MAN 

STANDING on Mars' Hill, on the little 
leveled spot ten or twelve feet square, sur- 
rounded by the old stone seats of the 
Court of the Areopagus, I felt I was on the most 
classic spot known to men, on the loftiest battle- 
field of history, where Christianity, marching up 
from the conquest of fishermen, began the conquest 
of philosophers. Facing in the distance the ruins 
of the magnificent Temple of Jupiter Maximus, I Athens and 
saw on my left the Acropolis, crowned with the 
Parthenon, the beauty of Athens and the glory of 
Greece, and on my right the rocky platform from 
which Demosthenes thundered against Philip, and 
the dark cut in the hillside, where dear old Socrates 
spent his last night and drank the hemlock; and 
just at my feet the Agora, the park of Athens, 
where her citizens walked among the statues of her her defense 
heroes and of her gods and learned the news from 
their armies and recited the stories of their valor. 
The true defense of Athens was not the Acropolis, 
with its walls and gates, but the Agora, where her 
citizens were transformed into patriots and heroes. 
Standing here to-night on this level place, sur- 

247 



248 



PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 



Liberty 
exalted 



Our heroes 
men sent 
of God 



rounded by the seats of these sages and statesmen 
and by these sages and statesmen themselves on 
this high battlefield, the battlefield of ideas, where 
the great idea of Liberty has been enthroned and 
sceptered, that idea which we ourselves have seen, 
clothed in the homespun of New England, in the 
business gray of New York and the great North- 
west, and in the deep blue of the army and navy, 
take this continent by the rim and shake it till 
our lakes boil and our rivers gurgle like open 
arteries, shake it till it shakes the vulture out of 
our eagle, and the coward out of our citizens, and 
the bondsman out of his chains — standing in this 
presence, and in this higher presence, it is fitting 
that we pause in the heat of our daily strifes and 
come up to this exalted field and walk among our 
heroes and the statues and shades of our mighty 
dead, that we may recount their achievements, re- 
call their valor, emulate their virtues, and stretch 
ourselves up against their greatness that we may 
grow to greater measurements. 

These men are sent of God. They come with 
God's secrets. When they walk into the world 
the race goes down on its knees before them that 
it may learn the truths they came to reveal. It 
is difficult to think of additional proofs that 
Washington and Lincoln were inspired of God. 
They rose to the comprehension of their tasks. 
In the midst of many conflicting and counter- 



WASHINGTON 249 

currents they steered straight to the landing for 
which their precious cargoes were shipped. Like 
birds of passage, in spite of winds and storms, 
in spite of clouds and nights, on and on, over 
lakes and rivers, over forests and plains, over 
wastes and deserts, as if guided by some unseen 
hand, they sped on tireless pinion, with infallible 
instinct, to the perpetual summer of unfading 
renown. 

Study the work of Washington, and what more Washington 
could he have accomplished had he been inspired "^p"'^^ °^ 
of God.? In the directness of his march from 
obscurity to dominion his course does not suffer by 
comparison with the course of David. In the 
great principles he illustrated, in the arduousness of 
his undertakings, in the vastness of his achieve- 
ments, he has no second claim to be a man after 
God's own heart. I cannot think that God builds 
a ship with infinite skill, laying her beams and 
bending her knees and setting her masts and curv- 
ing her prow and adjusting her rudder and spread- 
ing her sails, perfecting "each minute and unseen 
part" with all the wisdom of divinity, and launches 
her with the delicate touch of tenderest attention, 
only to abandon her in the storms of the deep 
to drift to unknown shores or go down in mid- 
ocean. He rocks the cradle of Samuel no more 
than he guides the steps of the good man in all 
ages. The same unerring mind and almighty hand 



for workers 



250 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

that guided Moses from Egypt through the wilder- 
ness to the promised land guided Washington from 
the hardships of foreign oppression through the 
wilderness of colonial strifes and confederate 
helplessness to the wide and endless domain of an 
enduring Republic. In the mount of inspiration 
God showed to Washington the pattern of the 
great Temple of Liberty. 
God waits God waits for his great workers and great ideas. 

He is always ready for every forward step. He 
withholds no good thing. Omnipotence is not en- 
riched by the increments of compound interest or 
blessings withheld from the needy. Withholding 
does not enrich him. So he seeks always every- 
where for the open heart of want that he may pour 
himself into it. Thus he is always ready. Thus 
he waits for his instruments. He waited for 
Martin Luther and for John Wesley, for Oliver 
Cromwell and for George Washington. The times 
and the cause and the man must be fitted into 
each other. Then the race seems to be thrust 
forward a thousand years in a single lifetime. In 
autumn the forces of life in these Northern forests 
seem destroyed. But let the glad sun of spring 
kindle its fires around the sources of life. Then 
suddenly, almost in a day, the life of the forest 
springs out in a waving, laughing leaf and blossom. 
The forest was accumulating its forces to leap 
forward when the spring should unlock the lid 



WASHINGTON 251 

of ice. So the race in many a dark and stormy 
age reserves and accumulates its forces to leap up 
to some higher level when the God-appointed, God- 
smitten, God-anointed man makes his advent. 

The times into which Washington came were Men of 
unprecedented. The New World was filled with ^'^ *™® 
civilized men, having all the independence of 
savages. They brought with them into the New 
World religious convictions of sixteen centuries of 
Bible instruction and the experiences of one cen- 
tury of protesting. In knowledge and science they 
were the heirs of all the ages. They built a new 
society in the wilderness out of materials that had 
been seasoned in the kilns of Europe for two 
thousand years. 

These elements, like untamed horses, increased Fear of 
the danger by increased strength. Each man organ- centralization 
ized himself into a government of his own and 
applied it to the wilderness. The only thing he 
feared was God. He feared the King, but he did 
not know how to spell royalty. Any power outside 
his own settlement had the same terror for him. 
Thus he shunned centralization only to fall into 
anarchy. The struggle of the Revolution was only 
a preparatory school to make him ready for more 
perils. He could fight the redcoats easier than 
he could trust his second-door neighbor. When 
the British, the common foe, retired, a greater 
foe appeared — sectionalism. During the war he 



252 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

allowed the Continental Congress to do without 
authority what he would not authorize after the 
war. That Congress raised armies, appointed offi- 
cers, ordained foreign ministers, raised money, 
built a navy, made treaties — did very much that 
constitutes sovereignty, and all this with no au- 
thority except the presence of the British, who 
were present to prevent the doing of these things. 
When the British departed, the power of the 
Continental Congress also departed. Congress 
could not raise troops, nor levy a tax. It had no 
power to enforce its will. It had every element of 
dissolution and not one visible element of dura- 
bility. Its credit expired. It had no money of its 
own. It sought to utilize English and Spanish 
silver. It was too poor to use gold, the rich man's 
currency. It had no securities. It exhibited a 
people revolting against Congress, unable to see 
why it was better to have an oligarchy called Con- 
gress taxing them than one man called a King. 
In these extremities the Superintendent of Finances 
was in the habit, when hard pushed for money, of 
drawing upon our Foreign Ministers for money 
when he knew that they had no money and no 
securities. John Adams begged from door to door 
in Holland for money to meet these drafts, and 
finally, after weeks of begging, made a hard loan 
from some Jews. 

This Congress had no money with which to pay 



WASHINGTON 253 

the soldiers, and so could neither keep nor dismiss 
them. It was absolutely helpless. In June, 1783, 
eighty soldiers from Lancaster marched upon Con- Helplessness 
gress, then in session in Philadelphia, and de- of Congress 
manded their pay and mobbed the chamber. The 
helpless Congress appealed in vain to the State 
of Pennsylvania for protection. It also appealed 
in vain to the city authorities of Philadelphia. 
Citizens went their way and let the soldiers be- 
siege Congress. At last Congress fled across the 
river and on to Princeton, where the college 
sheltered them. Thus the Congress that had main- 
tained a great war for seven years and had com- 
pleted an immortal treaty, browbeating England 
and France, was absolutely unable to stand against 
a handful of eighty mutineers. No wonder Algiers 
and Tripoli made slaves of American citizens and 
drove the young flag from the sea. 

The revolt of 1787 demonstrated the utter help- Above this 
lessness of the Confederate Congress. The States, ^^'^^^ '°'^ 

Washington 

alarmed, left Congress to restore order. Yet 
Congress did not dare call for troops to suppress 
the revolt, but evasively asked for troops to fight 
Northwestern Indians. The loss of everything was 
complete. Even courage and integrity were gone. 
The prize secured by the Revolutionary heroes was 
gone. But over this wild sea of anarchy came one 
figure walking like a spirit of light upon the turbu- 
lent waves, coming to the swamped and sinking 



254 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

ship of state. That figure was the commanding 
and stately form of Washington. His voice was 
heard above the waters and by the waters saying, 
"Peace, be still." He spake, and the Federal 
government sprang into being. He beckoned with 
his authoritative hand, and a Federal army made 
the will of the Federal government supreme. He 
sat down in the rocking seat of the central govern- 
ment and made the chair of the national authority 
as firm as New England granite. The Puritans 
of New England, the Dutch of New York, the 
Quakers of Pennsylvania, and the Cavaliers of 
Virginia and South Carolina became brothers. The 
government of the people, by the people, for the 
people, rose up a colossal form among the nations 
of the earth, where there are more liberties, more 
spelling-books, more New Testaments, more civil 
and political rights, more wealth, more comforts, 
more happiness for every thousand inhabitants than 
were ever known in any other age or among any 
other people. 
His strength Washington possessed the great traits that spe- 
and courage cially qualified him for his mission. I can only 
catalogue them. He had almost preternatural 
physical powers. This opened his way to the 
hearts of the pioneers and made him a fit repre- 
sentative of a nation stretching its young limbs over 
a raw wilderness. Had he been an effeminate dude 
no amount of genius would have given him a 



WASHINGTON 255 

hearing or the hearts of the people. He had that 
high-priced gift of courage. Events adhere to 
bravery. Mankind instinctively honors the Greek 
mother who gave her son a short sword, saying, 
*'If it is short, step forward one step"; also that 
other Greek mother who gave her son a shield, 
saying, *'With it or upon it." Courage made 
Washington great. His great dignity added much Dignity 
to his authority. No man ever twice made familiar 
with him. Bonaparte said his greatest difficulty in 
his first great campaign in Italy was "to keep 
his officers from patting him on the shoulder." A 
gentleman tried it once on Washington, but Wash- 
ington said, "What have I done that you should 
insult me.^" He was as modest as he was dig- 
nified. A gentleman once tried to flatter him. 
After mentioning and praising Washington's great 
achievements, to which Washington patiently lis- 
tened, he said, "I must give it up. You are the 
first man I ever saw that I could not flatter." 
Washington smiled. The man said, "There, I have 
won my wager." 

As a patriot Washington is supreme. His desire A patriot 
to be "indulged" in the comforts of private life 
after the eight years of war and great respon- 
sibilities, in which period he had turned aside 
but once to visit his home, and that only for a 
few hours, tells the story of his sacrifices and 
devotion to his country quite as clearly as the 



256 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

liberality which made him decline any pay for all 
his services, and led him to advance out of his 
private resources to the struggling country for 
emergencies sixty -four thousand three hundred and 
fifteen dollars. How this contrasts with the dis- 
honesty and selfishness of the Duke of Marl- 
borough, who purposely kept on his pay-roll the 
names of many dead soldiers that he might enrich 
himself from the spoils of his prostrate country ! 

Next above Washington's patriotism stands his 
simple, hard, everyday common sense. This made 
him a great commander and a wise statesman. 

In the wise Providence that shapes the destinies 
of nations we cannot forget the peculiar training 
and social position and character that fitted Wash- 
ington for his most difficult work. The people 
were accustomed to the insignia of royal power. 
Government to them had much pageant and dis- 
play. They could hardly conceive of the republican 
simplicity as real government. As some African 
natives danced around the missionaries in great 
glee when they saw them praying to an invisible 
God, so the colonists could hardly conceive of a 
government without pomp and ceremony. This 
demand Washington easily met. He was, with the 
single exception of Mr. Girard, the wealthiest man 
in America. He supported great style with his 
servants, four-in-hand and outriders. At his great 
levees he and Mrs. Washington stood on a plat- 



WASHINGTON 251 

form a little elevated and were protected from 
contact with the people by a cord and by a guard. 
Our simplicity would hardly tolerate such style, 
but it was the proper halfway house between 
royalty and democracy. 

Washington and Lincoln more perfectly than any Fitted to 
other Americans represent their respective ages. ^^ *™^ 
Each in a marked way, showing the nice adjust- 
ment of Providence, embodied the sympathies and 
wants and ideas of his time. Interchanged neither 
could have succeeded, but placed in God's order 
they stand forth in magnificent, colossal propor- 
tions, to be remembered forever. 

To-night we are especially honored in being TheAmeri- 
permitted to stand in the presence of this great cantrium- 
American triumvirate. Here before me is that 
silent soldier whose face and form mankind will 
never forget. He alone of all the great commanders 
will survive the flight of time. As only special 
scholars to-day can tell who commanded the 
different divisions of Alexander's armies, while 
every child knows the name and deeds of Alex- 
ander himself, so it will be with General Grant. 
His great comrades will drop through the sieve of 
the centuries and vanish from the memories of men. 
But he will rise into great distinctness, easily 
holding the foremost place with Napoleon and 
Wellington and Caesar and Hannibal. 

How can we address ourselves to the great cen- 



258 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

tral figure of this hour? For nearly a century 
Washington stood alone. History has many great 
characters, like mighty torches illuminating the 
ages behind us. I see Bonaparte, with the weird 
magnetism of fate about his classic face. Yet he 
was very selfish in every ambition and failed in 
every great purpose. I see Cromwell, England's 
greatest ruler, but his achievements vanished like 
the baseless fabric of a dream. I see Caesar, be- 
neath whose tread the solid earth seemed to 
tremble, yet his power was cruel and bloody. 
Here too are William the Silent and Cincinnatus, 
making the dark places of national conflict brighter 
by ameliorating gentleness. Yet, in spite of this 
noble company of the mighty dead, for nearly a 
century Washington has stood alone, in the con- 
summate harmony of his abilities, fitted to the 
work given him by Providence. Soldier, statesman. 
President, patriot, we gladly break the solitude of 
your greatness by placing near you Lincoln and 
Grant, thus completing the triumvirate whose fame 
shall never grow old. 



GREAT DEEDS OF GREAT MEN 



This lecture was first prepared and delivered about the year 
1872 in substantially its present form. It was subsequently de- 
livered during a period of thirty-five years in all parts of the 
United States, Canada, and in many foreign lands. 



259 



GREAT DEEDS OF GREAT MEN 

CiESAR once saw some strangers in Rome The power 
carrying in their arms some dogs and of^^^ampie 
monkeys and fondly caressing them. He 
immediately asked them, "Have you no children 
in your country ?" He felt that such an example 
would be pernicious to the Roman youth, who 
must be familiarized not with monkeys but with 
the deeds of heroes and with the statues and 
characters of the gods. Sparta felt the force of 
this law of character, and nearly a thousand years 
earlier brought all her children to public tables 
and reared them under public care and at public 
expense that they might hear their warriors and 
great men discuss the deeds and the glory of their 
heroes. So much did they thus enrich the blood 
of their sons that soon every Spartan measured 
his own value by his ability to serve his country. 
The glory of Sparta was the end of all their living. 
Soon common Spartans were invited to be the 
kings and commanders of the surrounding nations, 
and for five centuries Sparta ruled Greece, when 
Greece was making the history of the race, and 
her sons went forth to reap the rich harvests of 
the world's glory. 

261 



J262 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

Allow me to pause here, on the threshold of my 
theme, long enough to say that my object this 
hour is not merely to amuse you, nor yet to recall 
to your minds certain events of the past that 
might interest you; but it is rather this — to so 
present this subject as to awaken in some minds 
a love of the heroic, and a love of country, and a 
love of the race, and a thirst for renown, that 
shall exalt by so much the dignity of citizenship. 
I wish to arouse that subtle and sublime spirit 
that slumbers in every bosom, that rises above the 
narrow coffers of selfishness, and measures its own 
magnitude by the wants of mankind, that stretches 
even beyond the instinct of patriotism, the religion 
of the hearth, the lichen clinging to some native 
rock or crag, refusing for centuries to be trans- 
planted even from the banks of the Shannon or 
of the Clyde to the banks of the Thames or the 
Hudson — that inspired and prophetic spirit that 
kindles in the soul the fires of an all-dominating 
ambition which can never be quenched this side 
the grave. If I can give my countrymen a vision 
of their possible greatness and expose to the gaze 
of American youth such an enamoring view of 
Liberty that they will never be willing to survive 
her or live without her, then these things which 
have been recorded for our admonition and instruc- 
tion will not have been uttered in vain. 

All the great races have searched for the foot- 



GREAT DEEDS OF GREAT MEN 263 

prints of their deities. Egyptians, Greeks, Hindus, 
and Arabs have found certain marks on the barren 
desert or on the bald summits of the mountains Humanity's 
that have been transformed into shrines where ^^'""^ ^°'" 
their thought has been elevated. In Ceylon, even 
to-day, on the top of Adam's Peak, certain exca- 
vations in the rocks are held to be the footprints 
of the Great Spirit. Brahmans and Buddhists and 
Moslems constantly climb the mountain to worship 
and grow strong in their best communions with 
their deities. Let us go up into the mount with 
our heroes and commune with the spirits of the 
mighty past and see if our faces may not catch 
the radiance and shine into the world's darkness. 

God's great teachers are great events and great God's great 
men. These are inseparable in the world's history, teachers 
Whenever the good cause is helped forward and 
a new era is inaugurated in human society, you 
are sure to find some great soul, armed with the 
best weapons of his age, moving at the head of 
the advancing column, and making room for the 
new evangel. When such a one comes fully into 
the world, the race goes down on its knees before 
him and listening to his words learns the secrets 
he was sent to reveal. The revealments of these 
souls are the warp and their deeds are the woof 
of that wondrous garment which we call civiliza- 
tion. These revealments are essential to the unity 
and compactness of the race. They are the bonds 



264 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

of compactness between remote ages and widely 
separated peoples. It inheres in their greatness to 
belong to all times and all races. Toussaint 
L'Ouverture in his dungeon, appealing to the old 
Napoleon in the ever-memorable words, "The 
greatest of the Blacks to the greatest of the Whites," 
stands in the judgment of mankind on the same 
level with his captor. For history is unable to 
distinguish between that famine dungeon in the 
Alps and that fever island under the equator. 
Both alike, in spite of their keepers, belong to 
the race. 
Need of great Great men are priceless. We recognize a certain 
leaders inheritance in all greatness. As an old Chinaman 

once said, "A sage is the instructor of a hundred 
ages. When the manners of Loo are heard of, 
the stupid become intelligent and the wavering 
determined." 

It is difficult to overstate the value of a true 
leader. The great Greeks, who have had their 
hands in every batch of human clay that has been 
fashioned into beauty or molded into power since 
the days of Agamemnon, used to say that *'An 
army of stags with a lion for a leader is better 
than an army of lions with a stag for a leader." 
Napoleon In 1805 the old Napoleon swept over Europe like 

felt this need ^ tornado of fire and vengeance. Armies were 
consumed in his breath, governments crumbled at 
his touch, and thrones vanished before his glance. 



GREAT DEEDS OF GREAT MEN 265 

With his victorious legions he pushed up into 
Germany and rapped on the gate of the walled 
city of Ulm. It contained twenty-eight thousand 
of Austria's best troops. They were well supplied 
for a long siege, and well armed. But at the rap 
of Napoleon they threw open the doors and ad- 
mitted him without firing a gun. Men said to 
Napoleon, "The like of all this is not found in all 
history. This alone will carry your name to the 
latest generation." But Bonaparte was cold and 
morose and mad. There was no glory in victory, 
there was no comfort in conquest. Victory had 
no charms for him. Those about him did not 
know why, but he knew. For on that very day 
he received word from his immense fleet with 
which he expected to conquer England. It had 
met the hero of Aboukir Bay and had been 
ground to dust in the grip of the Saxon. Na- 
poleon finally growled out through his set teeth, 
**/ cannot be everywhere." Great men are worth 
their weight in gold when we come to the hinges 
of destiny. 

The same great truth is illustrated by the colored Leadership 
standard bearer in one of the battles of the Civil of colored 
War. Pushed well up in front, he soon found bearer 
himself alone. The breath of battle had swept 
away his comrades. The Captain called out, 
"Bring back that flag; you will lose it the next 
you know!" He answered, "Massa Captain, dis 



266 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

yer flag never goes back. You bring up dem men 
dah!" *'Dem men" went up "dah." 
Value of One wise man in a company or community is 

^^^ ^^ enough to put everything to rights. You let a 
sunbeam into a rat-hole and it spoils it forever 
for a rat-hole. The rats must either reform or 
move out. Put one wise man into a community 
and he will drive out the follies. "One shall chase 
a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight.'* 
Knowledge is contagious. Once liberated in a com- 
munity it insists on driving out the ignorance, just 
as naturally as water insists on running downhill. 

The past is full of the great deeds of great men. 
History records what the chiefs have done. Civili- 
zation is but the sum of the products of the greatest 
thinkers and the greatest workers. Monuments, 
books, art, architecture, inventions of all kinds, 
from the oldest philosophy to the newest toy, from 
the steam-engine to the praying machine of Thibet, 
all these are but the crystallized deeds of greatness. 
Generals are Bouapartc oucc Said, "The presence of the 
indispensable general is indispensable. He is the head, he is the 
whole of the army. It was not the Roman army 
that subdued Gaul, but Caesar; it was not the 
[ Carthaginian army that made the republic tremble 
^ at the gate of Rome, but Hannibal; it was not the 
Macedonian army that was on the Indus, but 
Alexander; it was not the French army that car- 
ried the war to the Weser and the Inn, but Turenne; 



GREAT DEEDS OF GREAT MEN 267 

it was not the Prussian army that for seven years 
defended Prussia against the greatest power of 
Europe, but Frederick the Great." 

Greatness is of slow growth. This is the law Greatness a 
with but few exceptions. We are born babes and slow growth 
grow to manhood. But the babe must have the 
soul of a man or it will never reach maturity. 
Even an ape cannot be cultivated into a man in Exceptions 
all historic generations. Now and then a great "^8^^"^ 
worker comes who seems to have the seal of 
royalty from the beginning. 

Pope felt the stirrings of his genius in early Pope 
childhood. He said of himself, "I lisped in num- 
bers, for the numbers came." 

Lord Byron was called and elected to greatness Byron 
by his genius. Even in the nursery he could 
manufacture his own rhymes. A female acquaint- 
ance of his mother, who believed that when she 
died she would make her first landing on the moon 
and then skip away to some other clime that 
might suit her better, annoyed him for a specimen 
of his poetry. Worn out with her teasing, he said, 
"I will give you a specimen if you will let me 
alone." She signed the contract, and he, steadying 
himself against his crib, gave her this specimen: 

"There is an old woman in Aberdeen, 
The cursedest hag that ever was seen. 
When she dies, which I hope will be soon. 
She verily believes she will go to the moon.'* 



268 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

History informs us that her interest in the young 
poet fell off! 
Burns Robert Burns, that poet of the heart and of the 

hearth, that seraph in the furrow, that divine voice 
in the lips of a peasant, was never anything more 
than a child, a child of nature, and his songs are 
not creations but inspirations. His ''Cotter's 
Saturday Night" is as true as the cooing of a babe. 
When he was first invited to dine at Dunlop 
House, the housekeeper, Mrs. McGuistan, a West- 
land dame, was distressed to see her mistress 
entertain a plowman. Mrs. Dunlop called in the 
maid and asked the poet to read "The Cotter's 
Saturday Night," which he did. The Scotch lassie 
threw up her head, shaking her red locks, and 
said, "Nae doubt, gentlemen and ladies think 
mickle o' this, but to me it's naething but what I 
saw i' my father's house every day, and I dinna 
see how he could hae tauld it ony other way." 
Such criticism insures immortality. 

A few souls come to this world so full of gifts 
and power that they are incapable of surprise — 
like grand old Richard Coeur de Lion, who was 
born with double teeth on both jaws all the way 
around, ready for use. You cannot touch them 
but the light will blaze out of them. They are at 
home in every emergency. They not only do their 
part on stated occasions when they have the text 
before them, but they are able to interpret events 



GREAT DEEDS OF GREAT MEN 269 

and plan a campaign in the saddle. Shakespeare, 
who has enriched the English language not less by Shakespeare 
the three hundred encomiums he has extorted from 
nimble tongue and rapid pen than by the forty or 
fifty products of his genius, was equal in readi- 
ness and resources to all his great characters com- 
bined. Playing once in the character of King in 
one of his own plays before Queen Elizabeth, he 
had his presence of mind tested by her Majesty. 
She intentionally dropped her handkerchief on the 
stage to allure him, if possible, from the dignity 
of the sovereign. But he instantly exclaimed: 

"But ere this be done. 
Take up our sister's handkerchief!" 

It is indeed bewildering to know how a man 
can always do exactly the right thing. I feel 
about it a little as the German philosopher who 
shut up in his study evolved a camel from his 
internal consciousness, his true inwardness, who 
said at the end of forty days and nights of reflec- 
tion and introspection, * 'There remains only one 
unsolved problem in the entire field of metaphysics, 
and that is. How did the Creator get the bark into 
a dog.?" We cannot understand the process, but 
we must accept the fact. 

Spenser came to this world with one supreme, Spenser 
all-mastering gift — an exquisite sense of the beau- 
tiful. He seems to have been clothed upon with 



West 



270 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

this glory before he arrived in this world. When 
he had finished his "Faerie Queene" he carried it 
to the Earl of Southampton, the great patron of 
the poets of that day. The manuscript being sent 
up to the Earl, he read a few pages and ordered 
his servant to give the writer twenty pounds. He 
read on in a rapture and cried, "Carry the man 
another twenty pounds." Proceeding further he 
exclaimed, "Give him twenty pounds more." But 
at length he shouted, "Go turn that fellow out of 
the house, for if I read further I shall be ruined!" 
Such souls seem a law unto themselves. 
Benjamin You could hardly pardon me if I hastened over 

this part of the subject without pausing to drop 
at least one sprig of laurel on the grave of that 
genius that presided over the Royal Academy of 
Art for so many years and presided over the tastes 
of England's king for nearly forty years — ^America's 
first great painter, Benjamin West, of Philadelphia. 
At seven years of age, with no instructor but his 
own genius, he gazed upon a smiling babe in a 
cradle and with a common pen transferred the 
vision of beauty to paper. His natural genius 
saw the beauty of form and color in everything 
about him. The natives of that early day were 
his constant study. The first time he visited 
Rome the artists took great interest in his coming 
and tried to surprise him with the beauty and 
power of the Apollo Belvedere. They fixed the 



GREAT DEEDS OF GREAT MEN 271 

statue in a room by itself, properly surrounded 
for artistic effect, with the lights adjusted to give 
it every advantage. Then they went with him to 
behold the statue. When the lights were turned 
on and West saw it, he exclaimed, "How like a 
Mohawk warrior!" And the declaration has in it 
the genuineness of untrammeled genius. 

These marvelous displays of genius are, after all, 
but partial exceptions to the law of the slow 
growth of greatness. 

Open History's soiled and crowded volume. The Progress even 
nations emerge into the light like coral continents, "^ darkness 
because millions of unseen builders lift at them in 
the darkness through succeeding ages. Some war- 
rior with larger brain and heavier arm than his 
fellows finds better weapons and better skill, dis- 
covers the prejudices and passions of his times, 
masses these about himself and his sons. His 
tribe feeds on the fat things of other tribes, grows 
into dominion, crystallizes, has a surplus, and so 
storehouses, and so defenses, and so settlements, 
and so cities; by and by civilization and a great 
nationality. But it takes not one step from the 
hut toward the palace, or from the stone hatchet 
toward the Monitor, that is not a step into the 
darkness to be illumined by later victories. 

Romulus broke the skull of Remus with a club 
in good savage fashion. More than seven hundred 
years later Brutus showed the coarse hand of 



272 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

murder but little softened or improved. Achilles 
drew behind his chariot around the walls of Troy 
the mangled body of Hector, his royal victim. 
Nearly a thousand years later Alexander sleeping 
with Homer under his pillow was but little more 
humane. It is the work of centuries to build up 
a civilized nation, a work that has yet to be com- 
pleted. Great Britain is undoubtedly the best 
specimen, and see what a hard road she has 
traveled to reach even her faulty development. 
Great men Great men believe in themselves. No man ever 

believe in gives this world a turn or two on his own account 
who does not believe in himself. I once heard 
George D. Prentice say, "Show me a man with a 
great idea of himself and I will show you a man 
who will never have another great idea." This is 
so well said that one almost wishes that it were 
true. But it is not true. A man must believe in 
himself to reach results. Faith is the cohesive 
power in the mind. Without it the diverging and 
disintegrating faculties would be no better than a 
mob of instincts and impulses. This gives the 
faculties unity and repose, without which great 
achievement is impossible. There has been a word 
of prophecy, or a favoring oracle, good omens in 
the stars above, or in the sacrifices beneath, or 
the profound conviction of a divine call, or of an 
election of Fate that has helped the great workers 
on to victory. It may be a voice like Abraham's, 



GREAT DEEDS OF GREAT MEN 273 

or a vision like Jacob's, or a blazing bush like 
that of Moses, or a test like Jephthah's, or a 
revelation like Paul's, or a cross like Constantine's, 
or a trance like Mohammed's, or a call like that 
of Joan of Arc, or a conviction like Cromwell's, 
or a star like Napoleon's; whatever be its form 
it is centered in the sublime faith of its subject, 
a faith that laughs at impossibilities and waits 
patiently for the inevitable. There seems to be in 
nature a subtle law that makes faith the coupling- 
bar that attaches every great soul to events. 

History has yet to record the first case in which Pessimists 
God has used a man for large work who habitually ^^^^'* s^eat 
looks upon the dark side of things. Some people 
seek a reputation for wisdom by prophesying 
failure. They are always croaking. But, mark 
my words, no croaker ever yet did any great thing. 
God has no confidence in the men who slander his 
government and his Providence. No army ever 
won a great victory with the flag at half-mast. 

The first Napoleon, on his Italian campaign. Faith a 
when he was only a boy in years, spread out his condition of 
future before his uncle. His uncle shook his head ^^ 
and said, "Dreams!" Napoleon stepped quickly to Napoleon 
the window, and pointing up into the noonday 
sky said, "Do you see that star.?" "No," was the 
reply. "I do," he answered, and that star led him 
to the summit of human renown. Faith is one 
condition of greatness, and no man ever yet held 



^14i 



PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 



General 
Wolfe 



the confidence of his fellows who did not believe 
in himself. 

General Wolfe, to whom Pitt committed the 
care of the French and Indian War, was invited 
on the day before sailing to America to dine with 
the great Secretary and with Lord Temple. Pitt 
wished to give some parting verbal instructions. 
The campaign was the theme of conversation, and 
poor Wolfe seemed to lose his head in the company 
of these statesmen. He drew his sword, rapped 
the table with it, patted the hilt, flourished it 
around the room, and talked about the mighty 
things which that sword was to achieve. When 
he was gone Pitt threw up both arms and ex- 
claimed, "Good God! that I should have intrusted 
the fate of the country and of the administration 
to such hands!'* But the result demonstrated that 
the embarrassed and excited soldier only spoke out 
what he felt in his veins. 
Wordsworth Wordsworth, the poet of the twilight, who lived 
in such calm and peace with nature, with society, 
and especially with himself, expected everything 
and was not much disappointed. Some have 
thought that his greatest gift was his confidence. 
But somehow he was always on the winning side. 
De Quincey said of Wordsworth's luck, "If he 
needed a place or a fortune, its holder was sure to 
die or resign. If I held a place he needed, forth- 
with, and with the speed of a man running for 



GREAT DEEDS OF GREAT MEN 275 

his life, I would lay it at his feet, saying, *Take 
it, take it, or in three weeks I shall be a dead man.* " 
Wordsworth once said, "I could write like Shake- 
speare if I had a mind to." Charles Lamb re- 
marked, "All he wanted was the mind to.*' His 
faith in himself was sublime. Once at a literary 
party in London Milton's watch was passed round 
as a precious relic. He looked at it calmly, 
passed it to the next man, then took out his 
own watch and passed that after Milton's. It 
may not be too much to suggest that without this 
supreme faith he never would have become the 
Poet Laureate. 

One of the old masters in painting was asked 
with what he mixed his paints, and replied, "With 
brains." Robert Hall, looking out through his Robert Hall 
prison gates, was asked by a man who recognized 
him, "Doctor, what brought you here.?" "What 
will never bring you here — brains !" There is vigor 
about these statements. 

By all these cases we come down to the great 
law that greatness is of slow growth. 

I wish I dare give you a little metaphysics. You Perfection is 
do not like metaphysics, but I do. I like them 
because you can prove anything by them. If I 
understand the situation, you are not giving this 
lecture, but I am. I will give you a little meta- 
physics. Evolution, the great scientific idea of our 
own age, has this in its favor, that it is never in 



the ultimate 
ideal 



276 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

a hurry. Watching the order of events, we have 
borne in upon us by almost resistless power the 
conviction that God follows the law of slow 
processes in all departments of his activities. With 
a being that is self-existent, and therefore without 
beginning and without end, the ideals of his action 
must be not speed, but perfection. If he needs 
it he can throw in a few million years, reaching 
his ends without ever giving him one gray hair or 
one wrinkle. To him perfection must be the final 
cause. Omnipotence needs no increments from 
compound interest. Perfection is the mark to 
which the arrow takes its way through the weary 
processes of countless ages. In such a universe no 
intelligent creature can expect to stumble on great- 
ness. Lord Wellington said, *'No general ever 
stumbled upon a great victory.'* 
Burke Edmund Burke stands as the synonym for 

greatness. One day he had overwhelmed Parlia- 
ment till the groups of statesmen were anxiously 
asking, "Where does that man get such wisdom .?" 
His brother, Richard, amazed and bewildered, 
stood alone in a reverie and was overheard saying 
to himself, *'How has Ned contrived to monopolize 
all the talents of the family ? O, I see it ! When 
we were at play he was always at work. I shall 
rival the ease with which he seizes immortality 
with the certainty with which I seize oblivion." 
It is the old law of patient endurance. 



GREAT DEEDS OF GREAT MEN 277 

Sheridan asked Woodfall, the reporter of the Sheridan 
House of Commons, what he thought of his first 
effort. Woodfall said, *'You have missed your 
calling." Poor Sheridan rested his head on his 
hands for some time, then responded with great 
vehemence, *'It is in me, and it shall come out of 
me!" Seven years later — as long as it takes a 
young man to go through college and through a 
first-class professional school — as long as it took 
Jacob to earn a wife — he made his great speech 
in the Warren Hastings case. At its close the 
whole audience broke forth into tumultuous ap- 
plause, and Mr. Pitt said, 'Terhaps an abler 
speech was never delivered." A motion was made 
to adjourn, *'so that the House might have time 
to recover their calmness and collect their reason." 
So carefully did Sheridan prepare for great occa- 
sions that it is now known that he prepared even 
his wit and sometimes waited for years for suitable 
opportunity for practicing it. One specimen is 
found among his papers, written and rewritten 
over and over again, condensed and sharpened, till 
after several years he practiced it upon Mr. Dundas 
in the House of Commons with the most extem- 
poraneous air, saying, "The right honorable gentle- 
man is indebted to his memory for his jests and 
to his imagination for his facts." This flash of wit 
was all the more cruel from the fact that it was 
itself almost as old as a mummy. 



278 



PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 



Cromwell 
at Dunbar 



Newton 



Down yonder at the Firth or Race of Dunbar 
old Cromwell is penned in by Scotch lakes on 
three sides and by Scotch plaid on the other. 
Those Scotch lads under Lord Bishop Leslie, the 
ablest commander of his time, taken even man for 
man were rough customers to meet on the moor. 
Here they were overwhelming in numbers and 
impregnable in their intrenchments on the hill. 
Cromwell sat still and waited. His officers came 
to him, saying, *' General, Leslie is intrenched, and 
we are lost!" They were terror-stricken and almost 
ready to mutiny. But Cromwell, with the decrees 
of God in his heart and the destiny of civil and 
religious liberty on his shoulders, said, **The Lord 
will deliver the Philistines into our hands," and, 
knowing his antagonist, he waited. On the morn- 
ing of the third day, at dawn, a scout ran into his 
tent and said, *'General, the Scots are in motion!" 
Cromwell sprang from his couch, ran out of his 
tent, and, looking along the line of nodding plumes 
and glistening spears, springing upon his horse, 
shouted, "The Lord hath delivered the Philistines 
into our hands!" And in forty minutes the pride 
of Scotland was broken, her clansmen slaughtered 
or disarmed, and Cromwell well on the way to the 
Protectorate. He believed in himself and in his 
plan and in his men, and so could abide his time. 

Sir Isaac Newton, goaded by some one for his 
painstaking preparation for life, said, *T care not 



GREAT DEEDS OF GREAT MEN 279 

how late I come into life, provided I only come fit." 
It is this law of slow growth that makes it true 
that mutinies never occur under captains who have 
come up from before the mast. Patience to wait 
and courage to hold on are the elements that 
settle the questions of victory and greatness. 

Come with me out to Cressy. I love to go to Edward lU 
Cressy, for it was first at Cressy that the Saxon »* Cressy 
was permitted to fight for English freedom. Be- 
fore that only Normans must fight for England; 
but Edward III went out to Cressy with our Saxon 
sires. There we stood that day, bracing each 
other — short, stout fellows, with heavy arms, heavy 
shoulders, and heavy limbs, blondes, with cold 
blue eyes, that could look into the face of death 
and not wink — clothed in quilted tunics with which 
to tangle the spears and armed with heavy cross- 
bows and long shafts with which to feel for the 
ribs of the Norman knights. And yonder the 
knights come, clad in mail and with their horses 
clad in mail. Their lances are poised, and they 
come at the top of their speed. They have ridden 
over the peasants of Europe as over flocks of 
sheep, and they calculate to ride down these 
Saxons. On they come, but we brace toward 
them and receive the shock. We parry their 
spears, we dodge between their horses, we slit 
their saddle-girths and tear them down, and we 
give them some exercise that they had not expected. 



280 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

In the midst of this shock a man ran over to 
Edward, who sat on a windmill watching the fight, 
and said, *'Sire, we must have help." But Edward 
quietly asked, "Is mv son, the Black Prince, 
killed?" "No, Sire." " "Is he wounded ?" "No, 
Sire." "Then run back and tell the boy he must 
earn his spurs, and tell him that these Saxons 
will take us through." And they did take us 
through, and they have been taking us through 
all the despotisms and all the kingdoms of the 
earth ever since. 
The Saxon a I am rather glad I am a Saxon. But the Saxon 
bad neighbor jg ^^ ^^^^ neighbor. We never keep house with 
anybody without making him do our work, and 
then we pay him if we feel like it. The Saxon 
is the butcher of the races. The Saxon is the 
robber of mankind. Just look at our history a 
little and see how we have carried things with a 
high hand. You may take either that great nation 
over the sea or this equally great one this side of 
the sea. It does not matter much which you take 
first; the record is about the same. If we take 
that one, see what they have done. Within the 
memory of living man we have seen Christian 
England crowd opium down the throat of the 
Chinaman with a red-hot bayonet, compelling him 
to sign a treaty, while in tears he cried out, "You 
will ruin my people." That was a bad thing to 
do. A little later we see Protestant England unite 



GREAT DEEDS OF GREAT MEN 281 

with Roman Catholic France to whip Greek 
Christian Russia in the interest of the Moham- 
medan Turk. That is a hard theological problem ! 
Still later we have seen Evangelical England 
crowd her iron prows into the Bosporus to defend 
the harem. That is a bad record, but ours is 
no better. I am glad it is no worse. It could 
not be; but it is no better. We have met three 
races, and what have we done with them.? We 
met the Indian, and he would not work for us. 
So we killed him and took his scalp and his pony 
and his land, and then we sang the long-meter 
doxology. We have also met the African, and he 
would work for us, and we enslaved him. Now 
we have met the Chinaman, and we do not know 
what to do with him. He will work for us, so we 
do not want to kill him. He will not be our slave, 
so we do not want to not kill him. The Saxon 
is a bad neighbor. But this ought also to be said 
— we have never robbed a people that we have not 
left them richer than they were before, and we 
have never enslaved a poeple that we have not 
left them freer than they were before. The quiet 
courage of Edward went down into the cold blue 
eyes of the Saxon and warmed his blood, and he 
has been taking us through. I am rather glad I 
am a Saxon. 

Once the soldiers of Cyrus cried out, "We are 
fallen among the enemy and are lost!" when he 



^82 



PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 



Great men 
self-poised 



Cicero 



Alexander 



William the 
Conqueror 



restored courage by asking, **How are we fallen 
among them any more than they have fallen among 
us?'* Such men do not need breastworks from 
which to gain glory. 

Great men in their great deeds must be self- 
poised, must keep the center of gravity within the 
base, must button up the majority inside of a 
single overcoat. Cicero asked the Oracle of Delphi, 
*'By what means shall I attain the greatest and 
most honorable fame .^'* The Oracle replied, "By 
always following the dictates of your own judg- 
ment." Cicero said, "This pleases me.'* Alex- 
ander, centuries before, came to this same Oracle 
desiring a favoring and favorable response. He 
happened to come on a day when it was not lawful 
for the priestess to prophesy. He tried to bribe 
her, but she declined his bribes. Having ex- 
hausted every other argument, he seized her by 
the arms and dragged her into the temple. As 
she went over the threshold she cried out, "O, 
my son, thou art invincible!" He said, "Go, go, 
that is all the Oracle I want!" The ability to 
extort this prophecy involved the ability to make 
it good. It is one of the characteristics of greatness 
that it is able to control circumstances. 

Come with me and look at William the Con- 
queror as he pushes up toward Great Britain. 
He stands in the prow of the foremost boat, 
determined to be the first man to land. As the 



GREAT DEEDS OF GREAT MEN 283 

keel touched the gravel he sprang from the boat, 
but his foot was caught in a rope and he fell on 
his face on the beach. That was an evil omen — 
the gods were against him! He knew he must 
recapture the faith of the superstitious Normans at 
his heels. So seizing both hands full of gravel 
he sprang up, shouting, *'By the splendor of the 
earth, I seize this island with both hands!" and 
the Normans cried out, "William, the Conqueror!" 
and followed him the next day out to Hastings. 
He was superior to the superstitions and gods of 
his time. 

Some of you may have noticed that I have not American 
given any American specimens. This is not by illustrations 

. . . avoided 

accident. It is set purpose, and for exactly nine 
hundred and sixty- three distinct reasons. First — 
O, you need not be alarmed; I cannot give all 
these reasons to you! — if there is any American 
present who does not know beyond the possibility 
of doubt that we can whip all creation and not 
half try, he is beyond hope; there is no use talking 
to him. And, second, we can hardly touch a 
great American without touching politics. And I 
have found in wandering up and down the earth 
now and then a man who does not know enough 
to agree with me in politics. Men do not gladly 
pay their money to see the heads knocked off their 
idols, so I am obliged to avoid American speci- 
mens. But there are two cases which I think may 



284 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

be introduced with safety. They are out of politics. 
First let me show you a picture of men who be- 
lieved in themselves. You are familiar with the 
Mayflower sccnc. It is that old Mayflower, in a December 
storm, on the New England coast, feeling for a 
landing. Men are slid down the side of the vessel 
into a little boat. Soon they are covered with 
sleet as with a coat of armor; soon their boat is 
also covered with ice; they pull for the shore; soon 
they are overturned in the surf and wade out up 
to their armpits in the cold salt sea, making their 
way to the shore at the hardest, dragging after 
them their boat. They pull it up into the snow 
and there they walk back and to, beating a path 
for themselves more than knee-deep. They are in 
great haste. They must land. They are sick on 
the Mayflower, sick on the deck, sick in the hold, 
sick in the cabin. Famine has clambered up over 
the side of the ship and holds the tiller, and death 
paces back and forth as if in command. They 
must land. They are in great haste. But there 
they walk back and to, all that night through, and 
all the next day, without shelter from storm or 
savages, under pressure for food and for a footing, 
the winter upon them, with every motive for haste 
and action, still they abide their time. All that 
dreary December day, while it snowed and sleeted 
and froze and blew, they prayed and sang and 
walked back and to, not stopping so much as to 



GREAT DEEDS OF GREAT MEN 285 

build a fire until six o'clock at night, for it is God's / 
holy Sabbath day. They can die if need be, but 
they cannot violate God's holy ordinance. Grand 
old men were these, good seed with which to seed 
down a continent, good material out of which to 
make a republic. I never think of these heroes 
waiting on this stormy land, in the snow and 
sleet of that winter Sabbath, but I feel moved as 
in the presence of the bravest men of our race 
and bless God that the imprint of the Puritan is 
everywhere. I would to God we could return to 
the quiet Sabbath of old New England. There 
is no danger in this direction. No craft ever 
stranded on Plymouth Rock. If we go down it 
will be in a warmer sea, in the maelstrom of our 
passion and pride, and in our forgetfulness of God 
and his ordinances. These men in the pressure of 
all their motives were able to bide their time, for 
they believed in themselves. 

The other American picture which I will ven- Grant in the 
ture to introduce is down there in the Wilderness. WUdemess 
There he sits, with his back to a tree and his face 
to a cigar. You recognize him. It is haunted 
ground. Union men have not been able to pass 
that way without running. A scout comes up and 
says, *'The left is turned and in full retreat." He 
takes his cigar out of his mouth long enough to 
say, *'I don't believe it," and smokes on. Presently 
a stream of fugitives comes rushing by. He gets 



286 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

up, goes down to the side of that running stream, 
takes with him his sphinxlike and impenetrable 
face, and says, "Boys, you can run for exercise if 
you want to, but you must fight it out here and 
now, for you can't get over the river." And he 
went back and sat down and smoked. A member 
of his staff whom I knew, a member of our Eighty- 
sixth Street Methodist Church in New York city, 
Mr. Keyes, came up just at that instant and said, 
"General Grant, General Lee is in your rear." 
Grant replied, "Well, then I am in his rear, am 
I not.^" He believed in his men and in his plan 
and in himself. History has no better specimen 
of courage. 
Great deeds In our day we have many inventions for saving 

depend on power. The engines in our ocean steamers con- 
great motives -T C (> 1 (• 1 1 

sume only a small per cent oi the luel that was 
once required for the same amount of heat. If 
we keep on we may reach a state, and I fear some 
of us are going that way, where we will save all 
the fuel, and where the more we burn the more 
we will have left. But, in the present order of 
things in this world, if you wish to get the power 
out of your engine you must put in the fuel. So 
if we are to produce great deeds we must have 
great motives. This engine which we call the 
human mind can bear the pressure of a hundred 
million tons to the square inch without straining 
a single flue. The framework may tremble a 



GREAT DEEDS OF GREAT MEN 287 

little, but the engine itself does not rattle. Who 
can measure the pressure on a mind in a day of 
battle when the commander knows that a nation 
and a civilization depend upon his clearness ? We 
have no figures to measure the strain upon a 
mother when her helpless darling babe, that relies 
upon her for everything, dying in her arms looks 
pleadingly into her face. If you could load this 
world onto a human mind as the body is loaded 
upon it, it would walk off with it with the same 
ease. There is power enough in the engine. All 
we need is fuel. 

Nearly all the great inventions have been reached 
by some soul inspired with holy zeal. The hunger 
of the soul for God impels the great achievements. 
Columbus walked over the Old World seeking help Columbus 
to find the New because he felt he was called of 
God to open a way to unsaved millions. He went 
from the sanctuary to the sea, from the sacramental 
altar in Spain to a beach of prayer and thanks- 
giving in America. This hemisphere is a trophy 
of the missionary idea. Gutenberg discovered Gutenberg 
printing when he was searching with exhaustless 
patience for some means of furnishing the Bible 
to the common people. The martyrdoms that have 
shed at once both shame and glory upon the race 
have come from love of God or love of country. 

Saxon civilizations have always had one great Conscience 
advantage over all other types of national life in o* Saxons 



288 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

that they rest upon conscience. Unless you can 
pinch the Saxon with the grip of obligations you 
cannot move him. Take out of him his moral 
conviction and he will not stand up any more 
than an empty bag. Remove the pressure of 
obligation and it would be more dijEcult to get 
great achievements out of him than it would be 
to capture a band of Sioux with a navy of canal 
boats. 
Motives of It is significant how the manufacturing, pro- 

the nations ducing, aggressive, conquering, thinking races of 
our time are related to these motives. You can 
distinguish these races by the motives that move 
them to action. If you want to get any power 
out of a Spaniard you must give him a cock or 
a bull or a heretic to torture; then he will act. 
If you want to get any power out of the Italian 
you must give him a stiletto for enemies, a charm 
for witches, a picture for his sweetheart, and a 
good hope of booty for himself; then he will act. 
If you want to get any power out of a French- 
man, the liberty-praising, glory-loving, light-jew- 
elry-making Frenchman, you must put his name on 
the bulletin board, a spangle on his hat, and give 
him three hundred and sixty-five new soups every 
year; then he will act. Not long ago, at the Fifth 
Avenue Hotel, a Frenchman nearly had a fit. He 
went in the second day and called for his soup, 
and they brought him the same kind that he had 



GREAT DEEDS OF GREAT MEN 289 

the day before. He sprang up and said, *'My gra- 
cious ! gracious ! What a country is this, with three 
hundred religions and only one soup!" Yes, we 
have outgrown the soup age. We are out on the 
plains of destiny, making religions for mankind. In 
order to get any power out of the German — the 
regular old-fashioned German, who has the archi- 
tecture of a haystack, so when you push him over 
he is almost as tall as he was before — ^you must 
put a table of logarithms in his vest pocket, a 
theodolite in his hat, and give him something to 
protest against between bayonet charges; then he 
will act. If you want to get any power out of the 
Englishman, the regular old *'John Bull,'* you 
must give him rare beef, overripe game, and an 
awakened conscience; then he will act. If you 
want to get any power out of the Yankee, who 
is so much like his cousins over the sea, you 
must awaken his moral sense, give him a field for 
fair play, room in which to wriggle, and a sixpence 
boot money; then he will act. 

At the battle of the Pyramids Napoleon shouted, Battle 
"Soldiers, forty centuries are looking down upon *^"^ 
you from the summit of the pyramids!" At 
Trafalgar Lord Nelson said, "England expects 
every man to do his duty!" General Grant's 
battle cry was, "God and the spelling-book!" 

But all the races are influenced by the motive Children's 
that operated upon poor Erskine, a lawyer with cry for bread 



290 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

brains but without briefs. He sat at the table one 
day and heard the case of a common Englishman 
who was being prosecuted for slander by a right 
noble lord. Erskine said, *'The man is right and 
ought to be defended." The man sat a little ways 
up the table. He said, *'That young barrister shall 
have one retainer," and went down the table and 
retained him. Erskine found four great lawyers 
on the case before him. The great lawyers said to 
his client, "You must settle! You must settle! 
You will be ruined if you don't!" Erskine said, 
*'It may be my old calling" (he had been a sailor), 
*'but I would fight." The Englishman got up and 
gave Erskine a regular bear hug that took him off 
the floor, and said, *'Well, we'll fight!" and at it 
they went. The four great lawyers practically sur- 
rendered the case. The judge was about to render 
his decision when Erskine arose and said, "My 
Lord, I cannot remain speechless when I see an 
English subject about to be robbed and an English 
judge about to stain his ermine!" That threw 
everything up edgewise. They had not heard it 
after that fashion in that locality. Erskine went 
on with the case and gained his suit; and before he 
went out of the Inns three thousand pounds were 
placed in his hands as retainers and the way was 
open before him all the way up to the woolsack. 
Some of his friends asked him, "Erskine, how did 
you dare thus to speak to the right noble lord, the 



GREAT DEEDS OF GREAT MEN 291 

judge?" He said, *'I will tell you. I felt that 
moment as if my hungry babes were pulling at my 
robes, saying, ^Father, father, now is your time to 
get us bread.' " I doubt if any man ever comes 
to his best abilities until he stands with his empty 
hands to keep the wolf away from his loved 
ones. 

The first two decades of the nineteenth century struggle 
give us pictures of power that ought not to be o^ prance 
omitted from a talk like this. The picture in the England 
first decade is a section of the old fight against 
the Latin races that has been waged with such 
varying fortunes ever since that band of adven- 
turers on the banks of the Tiber began the con- 
quest of the world by the capture of the Sabine 
women. Indeed, the yelping of that Roman litter 
has filled the history of twenty-five centuries. The 
bloody struggle against Bonaparte was but a link 
in the chain forged by that monstrous wrong 
which had been committed against mankind in the 
name of religion. Taken together it was hardly 
an even fight. France had only one man, Na- 
poleon, while England had two. Lord Nelson and 
Lord Wellington. But that was the game of 
Providence. It was too much to ask Napoleon to 
wrestle with both Nelson and Wellington. This 
was his disaster. While he pounded one, the other 
pounded him. If he pushed the English on the 
land they pushed him on the sea. They kept him 



292 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

bleeding in one leg or the other, and thus they 
made his death only a question of time. 
The two Two syllogisms refuted all the argument of his 

conflicts twenty years of blood. The first was called 
Trafalgar, and fell across his pathway in the first 
decade of the nineteenth century. The second 
was called Waterloo, and fell across his pathway 
in the second decade of the nineteenth century. 

The old Napoleon embodied more power, more 
ability to cause things to come to pass, than any 
other character in modern secular history down to 
his time. Europe was beneath his feet. The 
ancient kingdoms were swept from the map. Only 
one will was left in Europe — Spain prostrate, 
Austria vanquished, Italy helpless. The adven- 
turer from Corsica was dictating law from the 
palace of the Hohenzollern family, while his 
illustrious legions carried the eagles of France 
through the streets of Berlin. On all the earth 
Spirit of only one spirit opposed him, and that was the 
Great ntain undying. Unyielding, unforgetting, unresting, un- 
able forgiving spirit of Great Britain. She was the soul 
of the allies. She never dreamed of compromise. 
She never considered alliance with him. The 
other powers might be diverted, enticed, cajoled 
into dragging the Emperor's cannon, but Great 
Britain never. Great Britain had only one policy, 
and that was war to the bitter end; made only 
one argument, and that was victory or death; 



GREAT DEEDS OF GREAT MEN 293 

sought only one end, and that was the annihilation 
of Bonaparte and the destruction of his military 
government. Absolutely the only thing he could 
do with those stubborn Saxons was to scrape 
their island bare of every hoof and hamlet, of every 
babe and blade of grass. Then he could dispose 
of the rest of the world at , his leisure. With a 
genius that could read events without doubt or 
wavering, and with an ambition that was incapable 
of satisfaction, and with a will that was familiar 
with accomplishing the impossible, he deliberately 
undertook what he was pleased to call "sponging 
out the Saxon civilization." While he walked over 
Europe, burning cities and building sepulchers, he 
collected a mighty host with which to trample out 
the English civilization. 

He said to Talleyrand, his Minister of Foreign character 
Affairs, *'My fleets have disappeared from the sea. of leaders at 
But there is yet time, if they hasten to the Channel. ^^ ^ ^^ 
I embark my army. I land in England, and in 
London I sever the knot of all impending coali- 
tions." This was his purpose. An unexpected 
defeat of his Admiral Villeneuve enraged him. 
He was a truly great admiral, hardly second, if 
at all, to Lord Nelson. The courier bringing the 
news found Napoleon standing on the shore look- 
ing out toward Great Britain, where dwelt the 
only foe he feared. Villeneuve, fearing Napoleon's 
wrath, pulled his ships out from the shore so that 



294 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

the returning message might not come to him, for 
he knew that that would cost him his head. He 
repaired his fleet, joined with the Spanish fleet, 
exercised constantly his men at the guns, and on 
the 19th of October, 1805, started out, with a 
fleet of forty-two sail and eight frigates, down to- 
ward Gibraltar, looking, looking for Lord Nelson. 
He found Lord Nelson at Trafalgar, and he found 
a foeman worthy of his steel. For Nelson before 
coming out of the Thames said, "Bring out my 
coflBn and have it lettered. I may need it when 
I come back." (His coffin was made out of the 
mast of the flagship that bore him at Aboukir Bay 
— Aboukir Bay, great in his history, there where 
he was second in command but led the fight. 
His superior officer signaled to him to come back, 
but he put his glass up to his blind eye and said, 
*T see no signal, officer; victory or Westminster!" 
And he conquered.) Nelson at Trafalgar appre- 
ciated the importance of the struggle and the 
strength of his antagonist and resolved on victory. 
He divided his own fleet into two lines of battle, 
leading one himself in the Victory, and Colling- 
wood in the Sovereign leading the other. Every 
inch of canvas was spread that he might come up 
to the Frenchman as quickly as possible. While 
they were coming up Nelson wrote in his journal, 
"May the great God whom I worship grant to my 
country and for the benefit of Europe in general 



GREAT DEEDS OF GREAT MEN 295 

a great and glorious victory. May no misconduct 
in anyone tarnish it; and may humanity, after 
victory, characterize the British navy. For myself 
individually I commit my life to Him who made 
me. . . . To him I resign myself and the just cause 
which is intrusted to my care. Amen! Amen! 
Amen!" 

Nothing below this devotement could have pre- 
pared Nelson for the great work he was to do 
for the civilization of the nineteenth century. The 
hero of the sea must needs be almost superhuman. 
As suggested by Lamartine: 

"The variety and extent of the faculties which must of necessity Lamartine on 
be united in the same individual, to constitute a great naval leader, requirements 
astonish the mind, and raise the perfect sailor beyond all compar- for great naval 
ison above ordinary warriors. The latter require only the single 
firmness which faces fire unmoved; the former must be endowed 
with the double valor which equally braves death and the fury of 
the elements. But the self-possession which sufl5ces on shore will 
hardly be found eflScient on the ocean. All the resources of intelli- 
gence must be combined with courage in the chief who directs the 
maneuvers or the broadside from the quarter-deck of an admiral's 
vessel, or any other man-of-war. He must be endowed with science, 
to steer his course by the heavenly bodies; unwearied vigilance, to 
preserve his ship from storms and quicksands; skill in handling 
the sails, which regulate the immense machine like a master-key; 
prompt daring, to rush into fire through tempest, to seek one death 
through another; self-possession, which dictates when to strike, or 
how to parry the decisive blow; devotedness, which rises under 
the certainty of destruction and sacrifices a ship to save the fleet; 
a prudent boldness in assuming the risk of responsibility in sudden 



296 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

emergencies, when a moment or a maneuver may decide the fate 
of an empire. Disasters which cannot be foreseen or calculated, 
dark nights which scatter the squadron, storms which swallow up 
the vessels, fires which consume them, currents which run them 
aground, calms which neutralize them, rocks which dash them in 
pieces — to foresee, provide for, and endure all these contingencies 
with the stoicism of a mind that fights hand to hand with destiny; 
a narrow deck, with few witnesses, for the field of battle ; a thank- 
less glory, always ready to disappear, which is lost in a moment, 
and frequently never reaches the ears of your country; a death 
far distant from all you love, a coflSn shrouded in the depths of 
ocean, or cast overboard as a fragment of shipwreck! This is the 
epitome of the sailor! A hundred dangers for a single ray of glory 
— ten heroes concentrated in a single man! Such were the great 
naval warriors of France, of Spain, of England. Such was Nelson, 
the first and last of England's Titans of the sea." 

Battle of As the fleets neared each other Nelson ran up 

Trafalgar into the rigging of the flagship the ever memorable 
words, dear to every Saxon, *'England expects 
every man to do his duty." Then standing on the 
deck he looked along the lines of the squadron. 
As soon as the ofiicers had time to interpret the 
signals to the men he saw the redcoats standing 
on the decks waving their hats. Nelson caught 
hold of Harvey, the captain of the Victory, who 
stood by his side, saying, "See, see, the day is 
ours; Great Britain is here in person!" They 
close in; ship grapples with ship; they struggle on 
the boiling and bloody sea. The roaring of artil- 
lery mingles with the rattle of small arms, the falling 
of masts and spars, the crackling of flames, and 



GREAT DEEDS OF GREAT MEN 297 

the groans of the dying. A round shot carries away 
the head of Nelson's secretary standing by his side; 
the next a chain shot piles up eight dead seamen 
at his feet. The deck of the Victory is strewn 
with the dead. The smoke of battle shuts out the 
light of the sun. Soon the ricks of the dead make 
it almost impossible to pull back the cannon for 
reloading. Soon the sawdust which has been 
sprinkled on the deck to keep the men from slip- 
ping in the gore is carried overboard by streams 
of blood. Nelson says to a lieutenant, "This is 
hot, but give them back!" The air is full of 
splinters and missiles, and all manner of deaths. 
It is hot with slaughter and burdened with burning 
powder and the stench of dismembered bodies. 
Every ship becomes a Thermopylae, where the 
combatants struggle not for victory but for death. 
The pall of smoke that hangs over these floating 
sepulchers seems like a frown of infernal wrath, 
and the blazing portals underneath look like streets 
in hell. A breeze springing up lifts the smoke 
and reveals the French Admiral Villeneuve sitting 
on the quarter-deck of his frigate, with every 
officer slain, with six hundred of his crew piled up 
in death around him, with his masts gone, with 
shrouds and tops and yards and rigging and every 
sail carried away, with nothing left but a rocking 
and helpless hull. This was only a specimen of 
the French fleet, one globule of blood of that 



298 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

rocking, sinking clot called the French navy. The 
victory is complete, but Lord Nelson is dead. 
Trafalgar, added to Aboukir Bay, wrote Nelson's 
name above every other name in the annals 
of the sea and taught mankind again that it is 
vain to fight against God. This is the work of 
Trafalgar. 

Great fools Another class ought to appear at this point, 
worthy of great respect because there are a great 
many of them. I refer to the great fools — men 
who spend the greater part of a natural life in 
teaching a white mouse to back up an inclined 
plane (I saw one do it once, and I did not know 
which to admire most, the white mouse or the 

Dr. Parr other one!) — men like the great Dr. Parr, who 
had the reputation of writing the best Latin since 
Cicero. He was in Parliament one day. It was a 
great day on that stage of modern civilization. 
The Secretary stood alone. "Peace at any price!" 
was the cry all over England. Hour after hour 
Pitt pounded away at his argument for the defense 
of England and the English Constitution. Those 
peculiarly self-poised men went over to the govern- 
ment benches one by one as they were persuaded by 
the great argument. When Pitt saw that he had 
a good working majority the speech ended; and 
when the applause was silent men went out of the 
House with their fists clenched, saying one to an- 
other, "This means blood, but it means victory 



GREAT DEEDS OF GREAT MEN 299 

and honor." Dr. Parr, going out of the House, 
was asked by a member of Parliament, "Well, 
Doctor, what do you think of that speech .?" And 
little dapper Dr. Parr stretched himself up to his 
full dignity and said, "Well, sir, indeed, sir, I 
threw upon the speech my entire grammatical 
intellect, and I did not detect a single mistake." 
He might just as well have backed a white mouse. 

He was not so fortunate as the elocution teacher Beecher's 
(you will remember that an elocution teacher is a *^"**^ 
gentleman who teaches a dog how to wag his tail) 
who went over from New Jersey to hear Mr. 
Beecher, and when the sermon was closed he 
crowded himself up to the front and said, *'Mr. 
Beecher, I am an elocution teacher from the State 
of New Jersey. I came over to hear the greatest 
American preacher, but I am disappointed, dis- 
appointed." "What is the matter now .?" said Mr. 
Beecher. "Well, sir, I counted eighty grammatical 
mistakes in your sermon." Mr. Beecher said, "Is 
that all.? I would have bet this old hat there 
were over eight hundred if you hadn't told me." 
Some men are too great even in their flaws to be 
handled. 

Dr. Robert Hall, the great English preacher, Dr. HaUand 
had in his head what I think mechanics call "an ^^ substitute 
eccentric," and whenever it came around it lifted 
the machinery up out of gear, and then he wouldn't 
do anything; he wouldn't preach and he wouldn't 



300 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

pray, and the managing board had to keep a 
cheap man near by to put into the pulpit in case 
the Doctor got out of gear at the wrong time. 
One day he was out of gear and they put a Httle 
fellow in from the seminary who read a composi- 
tion. He thought he was preaching — perhaps he 
was. When he had gotten through Dr. Hall said 
to him, "My young friend, you have done me a 
great deal of good." And the little fellow said, 
"O, Doctor, it can't be that I hear such words 
from such a man as you are. I never expected 
such a compliment as that in all the days of my 
life. I will tell it to my children and my children's 
children, to the latest generation." The Doctor 
went right on as if nothing had been said — nothing 
had: *'You have done me a great deal of good, sir. 
Before I heard you I thought I never could preach 
any more, but now I think if that stuff will do I 
can try it again." Some inquiry among his 
"children's children" has failed to develop to 
which particular one he told it, but it has gotten 
out. 
His One time Dr. Hall was sick and being watched 

eccentricity ^y two good old women. He was on a lounge, 
and while he slept they talked. One said to the 
other, "An infidel died last night in B Street and 
the devil came after his soul." Dr. Hall sprang 
up, saying, "What is that you say.^" and they 
said, "We didn't say anything." "Yes, you did, 



GREAT DEEDS OF GREAT MEN 301 

for I heard you," he said. They said, "An infidel 
died last night in B Street and a devil came after 
his soul." *'Of course he did; what would the 
devil be good for if he didn't come after the soul 
of such a man as that.^" "But, Doctor, they say 
he came in the form of a black cat as large as a 
yearling calf." Then said the Doctor, "Of course 
he did; I have seen him myself." And they asked 
him, "How did he look. Doctor.?" and he said, 
"I saw him coming down the street and the pave- 
ment sank beneath his feet like the waves of the 
sea, the waves of the sea, and he looked like 
majesty in ruins, majesty in ruins!" No man can 
read or hear that description and not get glimpses 
of a magnificent structure. 

The second decade of the nineteenth century Conditions 
gives us the second scene referred to in this same at Waterloo 
tragedy of crime and slaughter. This time it is 
a struggle between the two great land captains, 
Lord Wellington and Napoleon, the most re- 
nowned and most self-confident men of their time. 
Everything combines to intensify the interest. The 
troops, exactly seventy-two thousand on each side, 
are largely the veterans from twenty years of blows 
and carnage. The prize is the dominion of the 
whole earth. The field is Waterloo. Here stands 
the Belgian lion to-day. This is where the crest 
of the battle was reached. This is Waterloo. 
Yonder to the left of us, the road from Nivelles 



302 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

coming up behind us is intersected at an acute 
angle by the road in front of us from Genappe. 
The elevated plane in this acute angle at our left 
is Mont Saint Jean. Wellington is there under 
the old tree, long ago divided up among the 
families of England. To our right is the Chateau 
de Hougoumont, with its brick walls running 
around the orchard and the barnyard and the 
garden, brick walls which the French took for 
redcoats, where Cooke stayed with the Scotch 
guards for seven hours while Jerome Bonaparte 
with the flower of the French army tried to drive 
them out — for seven hours, while Bliicher crept 
through the woods toward Waterloo. To-day they 
will point out to you a place where a door at the 
head of the lane leading up to Hougoumont swung 
open and three times a Scotch colonel reached out 
his arm and closed it. At our left is a small clump 
of trees supporting the right of the allied army, 
and behind us, close to the horizon, is the forest 
out of which Bliicher came at sundown with the 
fresh German troops. In front of us, well back, 
is La Belle Alliance. Napoleon is there, glass in 
hand, confident of victory, waiting for the ground 
to harden so he could handle his artillery, for it 
rained that night. It was God's battle. Napoleon 
was an artillery officer — the best the world ever 
saw. He fought all his battles with his cannon. 
He held them in the grip of his genius like a great 



GREAT DEEDS OF GREAT MEN 303 

pistol, swinging them around, pulverizing in the 
ranks of the enemy here a place and there another, 
crowding in with a saber called cavalry or with a 
bayonet called infantry. He waited for the ground 
to harden from before the dawn, waited until nine 
o'clock, waited until eleven o'clock, waited until 
one o'clock, while Bliicher crept on through the 
woods toward Waterloo. At last he thinks he can 
swing his cannon and gives the order to begin 
the dreadful debate. 

These great chiefs have different problems to The 
solve, each working according to the style of his p'^^^''^™^ ^^ 
genius. Wellington is cold, methodical, working by 
rule, venturing the least possible, keeping a way 
open of escape. Napoleon is the perfection of 
genius. He is a rule unto himself. He simply 
goes in to win. He leaps in to do the best possible 
thing and take all advantages. Wellington has 
three fixed points — Mont Saint Jean, Chateau de 
Hougoumont, and that clump of trees which he 
must hold. Napoleon's task is to come and take 
them. Through the long hours of that afternoon 
they each struggle for these points. Jerome Bona- 
parte comes with music and banners and troops at 
double-quick, determined to have Hougoumont. 
And yonder, on the left, come the old veterans 
of the French army, without music, without 
banners, walking steadily over the field. They 
have marched over the battlefields of Europe for 



304 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

twenty years, and why should they hasten now? 
They are determined to take that clump of trees. 
Late in the afternoon the allied armies on the left 
fall back on the plain, writhing like a great wounded 
dragon, and crawling out behind Mont Saint Jean. 
On the right of the allies Hougoumont is on fire. 
Cooke is out and Jerome Bonaparte is in. Napo- 
leon, looking through his glass, sees the front of 
Mont Saint Jean peeled bare from every living 
The critical foot and hoof . He knows by the inspiration of his 
hour of battle genius that the critical hour has come, and he 
gives the signal to Marshal Ney to bring up the 
Old Guard, the glory of the army of Italy. There 
they come, horses with their necks arched, banners 
waving, bugles playing, sabers gleaming! They 
pass the scaffolding upon which Napoleon stands. 
He waves his handkerchief to Ney, the signal to 
move, and Ney returns a military salute. They 
drop into a dead run and sweep on and on and up 
The charge against the front of Mont Saint Jean. Wellington 
sees them coming, and throwing up his clinched 
hands he shouts, "Magnificent! Magnificent!'* 
But on they come, riding down everything before 
them; and suddenly up rise the old squares of 
England, five deep, kneeling down in front, reach- 
ing over from behind with their long bayonets to 
receive those desperate horsemen. Within the 
squares are the British cannon, which they load 
and push up to the front. The men fold back like 



GREAT DEEDS OF GREAT MEN 305 

a sheath of flesh on a lion's paw, and let out those 
red-hot claws to tear the most magnificent squad- 
rons the world ever saw. On they come, at full 
speed, in solid lines. The brave leader answers 
the discharge of the artillery with the military 
salute. Wellington feels the earth melt beneath 
his feet. He is silent. His teeth are set. His lips 
are white. On comes Ney, at the head of the Old 
Guard. This host has swept many a field, and 
never once have they turned their backs upon the 
foe or even been repulsed in a charge. Every 
man is a hero, and Marshal Ney is at their head. 
They come with the weight of many victories. 
The first square is trampled out. The French The battle of 
cavalry dashes on. The squares melt and con- *^ English 
tract, but stick to the ground. Some are broken 
in by the heavy horsemen. Six out of thirteen 
have melted in the awful fire. The cavalry ride 
round these squares with slackened rein and shoot 
down the men with their pistols. Still these stub- 
born Saxons refuse to do anything but die. A 
Scotch fifer sits on a broken gun-carriage and 
plays right on, according to order, till the bat- 
talions are killed and a saber stroke cuts off the 
music with his head. Ney, having lost four horses 
under him, now marches on foot. One epaulet is 
gone, cut away by a Scotch saber. The star of 
the Legion of Honor, which adorned his left 
breast, has a ball hole through it. His plume 



306 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

that the Emperor has watched on so many fields is 
gone. His sword is broken. Still the remnant of 
the Old Guard dashes on after him. Seeing a 
hundred years of glory condensed into a single 
hour, he sends to the Emperor for infantry. 
Napoleon exclaims, "Infantry! whence does he ex- 
pect me to get them ? Does he expect me to make 
them.?" At the same moment Kemp, on Wel- 
lington's left, called on the Duke for reinforcements. 
"Impossible," answered Wellington; "we must die 
on the spot we occupy!'* The spirit of the Iron 
Duke inspired every soldier. One officer said to 
a young lieutenant, as he handed him his third 
sword, "How savage you are to-day!" "Why not.? 
We are here to kill the French, and the more the 
better!" One London prize-fighter attacked seven 
French soldiers and killed five of them before the 
other two killed him. The Iron Duke was not 
greater than the iron soldiers. Great Britain was 
on the field of Waterloo in person. Wellington, 
walking back and to under that old tree, watch in 
hand, said, "Would to God that night or Bliicher 
were come!" Seeing the squares melt, he said, 
"This is hard pounding, but we will see who will 
pound longest." Seeing one of the squares yield- 
ing a little he went down toward them, and his 
shrill voice rang above the din of battle, "Stand 
fast, old Ninety-fifth ! Old Ninety-fifth, stand fast ! 
What will they say about us to-day in England!" 



GREAT DEEDS OF GREAT MEN 307 

And the Ninety-fifth stood fast. They melted and 
went into the ground, but they did not surrender. 
Hougoumont was taken. The left had fallen back; 
now the center was giving way before the broken 
sword of the bareheaded Ney. Seven squares out 
of thirteen are no more. Sixty English cannon 
are spiked. All is lost, but one Iron Duke and 
Almighty God, when suddenly there comes a new 
sound out of the woods. Ney hears it and throws 
open his uniform and shouts, "Come on, come on, 
and see how a Marshal of France dies on the field 
of battle!" Bliicher, pulling down his Dutch cap, 
says, *'Men, we must give these English rest," and 
driving his spurs into his horse he went at the 
top of his speed. They ride by, sabering to right 
and left. The old French Guard is dead. The 
Empire is ended. Napoleon is a factor of history; 
and Wellington, Wellington is the idol of England. 
The problem between the Norman and the Saxon, 
stated on the field of Hastings seven hundred and 
fifty years before, has a new and final settlement. 
This is the work of Waterloo. 

Heroism is a moral quality. It may be the glory Heroism 
of the humblest man or child. High station ^ "^o* ^ 
furnishes a pedestal on which the glory of an 
heroic achievement may be exhibited, but it is no 
part of the act itself. Many a private soldier has 
stood on picket under the guns of a treacherous 
foe, when his humble duty was as noble as the 



308 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

conduct of the officer whose sleep he guarded at 
such peril and whose name appears on the bulletin. 
The flaxen-haired lad from Pennsylvania, who 
wrote from the famine at Andersonville to his 
commander, saying, "Dear General: We can die. 
Don't compromise the country. Don't let my 
mother go hungry. God bless you. Amen. Good- 
bye," would grace any monument. Once at 
Andersonville while the men were starving to 
death, more than a hundred a day, the prisoners 
were called out and addressed by their keeper, 
he telling them that Grant had been defeated, that 
the Union cause was practically lost, that if they 
would join the Confederacy they need never face 
their friends in battle, they could be put on guard 
duty over the forts, and soon when the war was 
ended they could go home and see their families 
again. An Irishman among the prisoners said, 
*'Mr. Officer, may I speak a word.^" And the 
officer, looking at his skeleton, thought it would be 
safe to let him speak, and said, "Yes." Pat 
stepped out in front of the line and upon a little 
box that was there and said, "Attention, squad! 
Right flank, back to death! March!" The entire 
company of prisoners faced about and marched 
back into the prison. Two days later they car- 
ried out the lifeless remains of poor Pat, starved 
to death, but a hero. There is something 
about the devotion of the common soldier that 



GREAT DEEDS OF GREAT MEN 309 

exalts him to a greatness that is solitary and sub- 
lime. 

At the battle of Camperdown, where the Dutch Admiral 
were humbled before the English, when Admiral De Winter 
De Winter left his own wreck and came on board 
the Venerable, the flagship of Lord Duncan, a 
common seaman exclaimed, "Myn heer Admiral, 
we have been long on the lookout for you. I am 
glad to see you with all my heart. You will be 
kindly received on the quarter-deck and so you 
ought to be, for you fought us like a dragon, and 
knocked us about with your balls like ninepins. 
Now let me shake your Honor's hand!" There 
was the soul of a king in that blunt English 
tar. 

Yonder in the mountains of Virginia some work- Virginia 
men find a railroad bridge has fallen. The Light- ^^^f^ 

o o ^ saved by 

ning Express is due. They are stunned with a boy 
amazement and stand still while the train thunders 
on. A little boy, nine years old, leaps onto the 
track and runs toward the train, with both arms 
held up. The engineer sees him and whistles and 
rings the bell, but the boy sticks to the track. 
The engineer whistles "down brakes" and reverses 
the engine and slides up to within four feet of the 
boy and stops. He cannot run over him. The 
train is saved. The passengers, when they see that 
from which they have been saved, laughing and 
weeping, pass him about and kiss him and endow 



310 



PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 



Soldier 
defies army 
surgeon 



Old slave 
saves soldier 



him. You can do no better thing than that boy 
did anywhere under the stars. 

Yonder in Tennessee a drunken surgeon, in 
charge of a smallpox hospital, often left the dying 
and dead side by side three days at a time un- 
visited. Sometimes he sent them with the dead 
cart too soon. One day a boy from Illinois was 
riding as guard with the dead cart to the place 
of burial. He noticed in the heap that was piled 
in the cart one man whose breast heaved. He 
called the surgeon's attention to the fact. The 
surgeon — and those surgeons were mighty men — 
swore at him and told him to mind his own bus- 
iness, the man would be dead by the time he 
could get him well covered up. The boy pulled 
out his revolver and holding it on the surgeon said, 
"Take him out or I will put you in, quick!" The 
surgeon took him out. So would I under the 
circumstances. There was a General Jackson 
in that boy. You can do no better thing than that 
boy did anywhere under the stars. 

A man got out of Andersonville and he told me 
he found outside what they all wished to find — 
a colored hand to lead him. It was an old slave 
woman, bowed nearly double under ninety years of 
bondage. She led him past the outer guard and 
away to her cabin. There she covered him up in 
the corner with leaves and fed him and watched 
him till he grew strong enough to march. Then 



GREAT DEEDS OF GREAT MEN 311 

she pointed him on the way to the Union lines 
and bade him good-bye. After a little he turned 
around to take a farewell look at the grand old 
colored woman. He saw her going backward 
toward her cabin, turning over the leaves with a 
stick. He said, "What you doing. Auntie .?" "O, 
honey, Ise just a cobberin' up dem signs, dat's 
all." You can do no better thing than that old 
colored woman did anywhere under the stars. 

One night in New York, No. 497 Broome Street Police 
was burning. A poor man with his wife and six ^^^°^^ 
children lived on the third floor. He with great 
diflSculty made his way to the street with his 
family. On counting, one was missing. Isabelle, 
aged ten years, had been left behind. Both parents 
were nearly frantic. A policeman. Roundsman 
Byrnes, rushed into the burning building and up 
to the third floor, found the girl unconscious, took 
her up in his arms, wrapped his overcoat about 
her, and made his escape to the street with burned 
hands and face, but with the rescued child. You 
can do no better thing than Byrnes did anywhere 
under the stars. 

On the Central Pennsylvania Railroad, just west Devotion of 
of Altoona, an engineer was pushing his way up railroad 
the mountain with his express train of passengers, ^^S"^^"" 
when he saw just before him four cars laden with 
stone broken loose from a train and coming down 
on his track at the rate of ninety miles an hour. 



312 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

Quick as thought he whistled on the brakes, un- 
coupled his engine, and went up alone to meet the 
monster. They fished him out from under the 
broken engine, alive but badly damaged. 

I was giving this lecture one night in Altoona, and 
when I came to this part I saw a man close to 
the platform stretching himself and going through 
contortions. The first thought I had was, "That 
man is going to have a fit. We'll see how he comes 
out." I noticed the people in the audience rising 
up and some standing on the seats looking at him. 
I soon found out that that was the engineer, going 
through the struggle again. You can do no better 
thing than he did anywhere under the stars. 
Heroism is not one of the lost arts. 
Great When the Egyptian wishes to write history he 

speeches paints it. So some men, when they would do a 
Mirabeau great thing, talk it. Mirabeau, rising in his place 
in the French Assembly, when the King's troops 
came in to disperse the body, glared on the ad- 
vancing bayonets, then springing up onto his desk 
he shouted, with an imperial wave of his hand, 
"Out! go tell your master that France defies him!" 
It w^as enough. The soldiers, awed by his spirit, 
retired from the Assembly. 
Demosthenes Demosthenes spoke and the Athenians cried 
out, "Lead us against Philip!" And Philip him- 
self said when he read the speech, "If I had 
heard that speech of Demosthenes I should have 



GREAT DEEDS OF GREAT MEN 313 

cried out with the Athenians, 'Lead us against 
Philip!'" 

Whitefield is preaching yonder. Lord Chester- Whitefield 
field sits in Lady Huntingdon's pew and listens. 
The preacher compares the sinner to a blind 
beggar on a dangerous road. His little dog gets 
away from him. On the edge of a precipice he 
has no guide but his staff. This slips through 
his fingers and skims away down the abyss. 
Unconscious of peril, the beggar stoops down to 
regain it, and stumbling forward — "Good God, he ^ 
is gone!" shouted Lord Chesterfield, who sprang V 
forward out of his seat to save the beggar. Preach- 
ing in New York, he described a storm at sea, 
ending with the words, *'The tempest rages, our 
masts are gone, the ship is on her beam ends! 
What next.^" Six sailors sprang up at once and 
shouted, "Take to the long boat!" 

Daniel Webster replied to Hayne of South Webster's 
Carolina in the United States Senate. Hayne had ""^p^^ *° 

Havne 

insulted New England and especially Massachu- 
setts. Webster is to reply. The Senate Chamber 
is packed. The Foreign Ministers' gallery is full. 
The reporters' gallery is crowded. The strangers' 
gallery is jammed. Over yonder, in the strangers' 
gallery, sit a company of men from New England. 
They have been walking about Washington for a 
day or two, not knowing whether they had any 
right to exist or not. They thought they would 



314 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

go up to the Senate and hear what the Bay State 
orator might have to say. They are waiting to 
hear his speech. Calhoun is in the chair. Webster 
walks over to the clerk's desk and calls for the 
reading of the resolution. Hayne sits on the front 
seat before him, and during the speech reads a 
newspaper upside down. Webster goes into his 
speech, through that most magnificent of all open- 
ings, about the mariner in stormy weather. Those 
men in the gallery listen. He soon catches Ban- 
quo's ghost and throws it back at Hayne. Those 
men in the gallery straighten up and look at each 
other. He pushes on in his great argument, which 
has never been answered and which put tens of 
thousands of men into the Union army after 
Webster had gone to his rest. Those men in the 
gallery leaned forward and held their breath. He 
delivers that magnificent eulogium upon Massa- 
chusetts. They sob and cry like whipped children. 
At last he comes to that inspired close in which, 
in a manner peculiar to himself under great mental 
excitement, he spoke with his arms by his sides, 
gesturing only from his wrists downward, saying, 
"Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and 
inseparable!" The Senate was silent and motion- 
less. Nothing could be heard but the hoarse 
breathing and sobbing of the senators. After two 
minutes of this sobbing silence, Calhoun, white 
with rage, brought down his gavel and screeched 



GREAT DEEDS OF GREAT MEN 315 

at the top of his untunable voice, "Order!" and 
the convulsion of the Senate declared the victory 
of the Massachusetts orator. Disunion and nulli- 
fication were laid for a whole generation and 
could not lift their heads again till Webster was 
dead. 

You remember the answer of the great actor. Great acHng 
when asked by a preacher how it was that actors 
could do so much more with their fictions than 
preachers with their truth. He said, *'You present 
your truth as if it were fiction. We present our 
fiction as if it were truth." Any soul that gets 
down to the core of things is sure to be felt. When 
Betterton acted Hamlet, Booth tried to act the Booth 
Ghost. The look of horror on Betterton's face 
overcame Booth so he could not proceed. Fannie 
Kemble tried to play Ophelia to her father's 
Hamlet, but the torrent of his emotions swept her 
out of her wits and she could not utter a word. 

Doubtless the greatest acting known to history xean 
was Kean's rendering of the character of Sir Giles 
Overreach in Massinger's drama. The character 
is admitted to be the greatest embodiment of 
villainy and passion ever presented. Kean under- 
took to master it. For more than a year he studied 
the language, refusing to present it. His wife says 
that he often spent the whole night before the 
mirror studying his expression and action. By and 
by he was announced to act at Drury Lane Theater. 



316 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

Great descriptions are left us of how wonderfully 
he did. When he came on the stage, Lord Byron, 
who sat in one of the stage boxes, whispered to 
Tom Moore by his side, "Something dreadful is 
written on his countenance. I have never seen on 
mortal such an expression of power." Throughout 
the play Kean bore himself like a demon, but in 
the last scene he was the incarnation of evil. He 
shook like a tree in a tempest, before the whirlwind 
of his passionate vengeance. And when he was 
removed from the stage his face, turned back to 
the spectators, was so awful that Lord Byron, 
seized with convulsions, fell forward as one dead. 
Screams of terror rang out from the boxes and 
the gallery. The pit rose en masse to escape. 
Mrs. Glover, an experienced actress, fainted on the 
stage. Mrs. Horn, also playing in the piece, stag- 
gered to a chair and wept aloud at the appalling 
sight of Kean's agony and rage; and Munden, a 
veteran player, was so transfixed and terrified by 
Kean's awful countenance that he had to be 
carried off like a frozen man. Kean gave them one 
look into hell. And no other hand has ever since 
been able to lift the lid. 

Acting is powerful only in proportion as it rises 
above acting to being, to reality. So ability is 
weakened by apparent sharpness. Philip of Mace- 
don was once called on to judge between two men 
of doubtful character. Hearing the case, he or- 



GREAT DEEDS OF GREAT MEN 317 

dered one of them to flee out of Greece and ordered 
the other to flee after him. 

Old Archelaus, once being in the hands of a 
garrulous barber, was asked by the barber how he 
would be shaved. "In silence," he replied. 
Evidently that was not a Philadelphia barber. 

History contains some instances of great dignity Great 
and justice. One cannot but admire the integrity "^^^s^^^y 
of Pitt. His influence was felt for seven years by Pitt 
our fathers in the struggle of the Revolution. He 
did not hesitate or waver in his war policy. But 
no people under the sun can do better justice to 
his integrity. A favorite with the King, everything 
was within his reach, but he stoutly refused 
everything that looked like enriching himself. His 
country needed all her strength. He often offended 
his Majesty by refusing clerkships which brought 
money without work. One clerkship, worth three 
thousand pounds per year, was urged upon him by 
the King. Pitt avoided it by hunting out Colonel 
Barre, a political antagonist, who had a pension 
of three thousand pounds. To save this sum to 
the country, Pitt had the clerkship conferred on 
the Colonel. King George offered him the Garter 
as an expression of his confidence. Pitt refused 
to accept it. In 1789, when the King's health was 
giving way and a change of administration seemed 
imminent, some London gentlemen, knowing Pitt 
to be poor, desired to provide for his comfort 



318 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

after his removal from office. They proposed to 
give him one hundred thousand pounds. Their 
names were to be concealed as a secret of honor. 
Pitt was approached through his secretary by one 
of these gentlemen. He refused to accept, saying, 
*Tf at any future time I should return to office, 
I could never see a gentleman from the city with- 
out thinking, 'He may be one of my subscribers.' '* 
Such men have made English justice a glory 
throughout the world. 

Sir Thomas More, who added such luster to 
the Bar and Bench, made it an invariable rule 
never to take a case until he had examined it far 
enough to know it was just. Then he first tried 
to reconcile the parties without a suit. If that 
failed he directed the parties on both sides how 
to proceed with the least expense and trouble. 
As Lord Chancellor he took the poor as his wards. 
He sat every afternoon in his open hall and allowed 
any who had a case to state it, without the aid of 
bills, solicitors, or petitions. He once rendered 
judgment against his own son-in-law. It is encour- 
aging to our age to know that this impartial 
justice brought him to the block for beheading and 
quartering. The King, as a testimonial to his 
great virtues, commuted his sentence to simple 
decapitation. He responded, *'God preserve all my 
friends from such favors!" 

A gentleman once presented Sir Matthew Hale 



GREAT DEEDS OF GREAT MEN 319 

with a buck. Afterward a case in which this 
gentleman was interested came before him and he Sir Matthew 
refused to allow the case to proceed till he had ^^® 
paid for the buck. The gentleman withdrew the 
case, saying, he "would not appear in a court 
where his honor was suspected." 

During the reign of Henry IV of England, a Sir William 
servant of the Prince of Wales was put on trial Gascoygne 
for some crime, and condemned. The Prince, 
overcome with rage, rushed into the courtroom 
and demanded his servant's release. The Chief 
Justice, Sir William Gascoygne, mildly reminded 
the Prince of the dignity of the ancient laws of 
the kingdom, and advised him to seek a pardon 
from his father, the King. The Prince, in a rage, 
flew at the Judge, and was about to do him vio- 
lence. But the Judge, preserving the dignity of 
his office, frowned down upon the Prince, and 
awed him into silence by his majestic sternness, 
and said, "Sir, I keep here the place of the King, 
your sovereign lord and father, to whom you owe 
double allegiance. In his name I charge you to 
desist, and henceforth give a better example to 
those who shall hereafter be your own subjects. 
For your contempt and disobedience I commit you 
to the prison of the King's Bench, there to remain 
till the pleasure of the King, your father, be 
known." The Prince, awed into sense, suffered 
himself to be led to jail by the officers of justice. 



PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

A courtier hastened to inform the King, who, on 
hearing it, exclaimed, "Happy is the King in 
having a magistrate who has the courage to exe- 
cute the laws, and still more happy in having a 
son who will submit to the punishment inflicted 
for offending them!" 
Execution We Cannot turn from this most inviting field 

of Dr. Todd without recalling another notable case from the 
same great nation. Rev. Dr. Todd, a celebrated 
and popular London preacher, and one of the 
royal chaplains, was convicted of forgery and sen- 
tenced to death. The jury and court joined in a 
petition to the Crown for clemency. The people 
took up the plea. From all over England came 
petitions. The inhabitants of the North came 
down to intercede. The Scotch came in clans to 
ask for his pardon. The peasantry of Ireland were 
not silent. The House of Commons went down 
at the foot of the throne to invoke mercy. The 
great city was crowded with anxious and praying 
men. Rebellion muttered in the streets. Revolu- 
tion seemed to heave under the very throne. 
Many of the ancient peers of the land joined in 
the common petition. The King, agitated and 
anxious, saw the hurrying thousands and heard the 
petitions of his constitutional advisers, and he re- 
sponded, "At the bar of justice the peasant and 
the King must stand side by side. I will not 
tamper with the laws of England." That sentence 



GREAT DEEDS OF GREAT MEN 321 

has added dignity to the laws of every civilized 
nation under the stars. 

The peasantry of Scotland have a superstition Great 
that the ancient Picts, to whom they refer all f^^"^*^^ 

1 ♦ • 1 M T 1 1 1 "'^ every 

prehistoric buildings, were accustomed to lay the advance 
foundations of their buildings in the blood of some 
human sacrifice offered to appease the evil spirits. 
Buddhists say that Gautama, their friend, suffered 
five hundred and fifty births and deaths in order 
to prepare himself to relieve the afliicted beings in 
the universe. These dark traditions rest on a 
great law in human nature and in things that 
makes every advance step at the hardest. The 
blood of heroes is the only coin that passes at 
par in all worlds. 

After many months of siege, Edward III com- Citizens 
pelled the surrender of the city of Calais. The of Calais 
unconditional surrender, which meant in those days sacrificed 
the sacking of the city, was finally commuted to 
the execution of six of the principal citizens. The 
inhabitants met in the market to hear the terms. 
The new sorrow seemed worse than the old. But 
the difficulty was settled by Eustace de St. Pierre, 
one of the leading citizens, who offered himself as 
one of the victims. Soon five more stepped for- 
ward. Sir Walter Manny took these to England. 
The King asked, "Are these mechanics the prin- 
cipal men of Calais ?'' "They are. Sire," answered 
Manny, in a brave speech, "not only of Calais, 



322 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

but of all France, if virtue has any share in no- 
bility." Edward asked, "Were they peaceably 
delivered?" "Yes, Sire." "Was there no resist- 
ance, no commotion among the people.^" asked 
the astonished King. "None in the least. Sire. 
The people would have all perished rather than 
have delivered the least of these to your Majesty; 
but they are self-delivered, and come to offer their 
inestimable heads as an ample equivalent for the 
ransom of thousands." Edward, provoked inside, 
said, "Severity at times is necessary. Go," he 
said to an officer, "lead these men to execution." 
At this instant the camp rang with trumpets. The 
Queen had come with troops from England. Sir 
Walter hastened to her and told the order. She 
saluted the King and asked for immediate audience, 
and said, "My business now is not concerning the 
lives of mechanics, but concerning the honor of 
the English nation. It respects the glory of my 
Edward, my husband, my King. You think you 
have sentenced six of your enemies to death. No, 
my Lord, they have sentenced themselves. Their 
scaffold would be to them a stage of honor, but 
to Edward a stage of shame, and an indelible stain 
on his name." Edward, touched with this wisdom, 
cried out, "I have done wrong. Stay the execu- 
tion and bring the captives before us." When 
brought into the royal presence, the Queen, 
Philippa, said, "Natives of France, inhabitants of 



GREAT DEEDS OF GREAT MEN 323 

Calais, noble burghers, though you were tenfold the 
enemies of our person and of our throne, we 
could feel for you only respect and affection. We 
snatch you from the scaffold. We thank you for 
the lesson you have taught us, that excellence is 
not of blood, or of title, or of station, and that 
virtue gives a dignity superior to that of Kings." 
St. Pierre exclaimed, *'0, my country, it is now 
that I tremble at you. Edward only arms our 
cities, but Philippa conquers our hearts." 

The exalted spirit that forgets self and dies for Devotion 
a cause, for an idea, or for the helpless, makes the *« a cause 
one blood of all nations tingle with the divine fire 
that burns in its bosom. I confess to the feeling 
of admiration half akin to worship when I see a 
soul aware of impending perils, and yet at the 
command of duty goes right on. Old Admiral 
Drake, standing on his quarter-deck before an Drake 
engagement, was observed to shake, whereupon he 
coolly remarked, "My flesh trembles at the many 
dangers into which my resolute heart will lead 
me." 

Ben Jonson was once involved in some trouble Ben Jonson 
in which his companions were sent to jail. Ben 
went with them, thinking himself equally guilty. 
The trial acquitted them. A banquet celebrated 
the deliverance, when his mother drank a toast to 
him and showed him a paper of poison which she 
intended to administer to him and so cheat dis- 



324 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

grace. To assure him of her heroism she intended 
to first drink of it herself. 
Great As I turn toward the past, away back yonder, 

reformers gy^ hundred ycars before the days of Pericles, I 
get glimpses of one of God's great reformers. I 
see him yonder on Carmel, in the struggle of the 
good cause against sin. He is of the inhabitants 
of Gilead, beyond Jordan. It is not a land of 
peaceful homes and peaceful valleys. It is a land 
of sleepless shepherds and reckless hunters. It is 
a land of canvas houses and rock castles. Here 
he grew up, familiar with nature in her grandest 
moods, the stern old prophet of the mountains — 
Elijah Elijah. I see him yonder, tall, broad-shouldered, 

heavy-limbed, heavy-browed ; clothed with a girdle 
of skins about his loins and with a cape of sheepskin 
with the wool on about his shoulders; bareheaded, 
with long, heavy, matted hair. The dark skin of 
the native darkened by summer's suns and desert 
blasts, he seems almost a Black Hawk or a Red 
Jacket or a Tecumseh. His frame was as unyield- 
ing as his character. His muscles seemed to be bands 
of steel. All day long he could stand, unweary- 
ing and unchanging, before the expectant altar, 
or, like a Bedouin, run all day long before Ahab's 
chariot, starting up now and then before the King, 
uttering his warning, and vanishing in the desert. 
Cold, reticent, shunning society, wandering over 
the naked plains or from cave to cave, and climb- 



GREAT DEEDS OF GREAT MEN 325 

ing from peak to peak, he was the embodiment of 
righteousness and justice. I see him there on 
Carmel. He is face to face with the priests of 
Baal. They are a host, eight hundred and fifty, 
fat, sleek, princely, fed at Jezebel's table and 
clothed from Ahab's treasury, ornamented with 
ermine and pearls and plumes. Round on the 
mountain are the waiting thousands of Israel. All 
day long the false priests have vainly called for 
answering fire. Now all eyes turn toward Elijah. 
No plumes nod above his head. His cloak slides 
back from his shoulder; with his bare arm stretched 
toward heaven, he stands on the summit of the 
mountain, up against the evening sky, more a deity 
than a mortal. His voice rings out on the silent 
air and reaches the waiting thousands, **God of 
our fathers, answer by fire, that Israel may know 
that thou art in Israel." His face lights up with 
reflected light. Burning brands fall from heaven 
upon his altar. The flames lick up the offering 
and the altar and the w^ater in the trenches, and 
a cloud of white vapor floats away toward the 
peaceful Mediterranean, a flag of victory. Israel 
drops on its knees, the priests of Ahab are slain by 
the brook, and the prophet darts out into the 
wilderness and is gone. 

He rebukes sin, awakens Israel, rebuilds the 
altars of Jehovah, lives all his years in the moun- 
tain fastnesses, grand and gloomy and resolute and 



3^6 



PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 



Self- 
forgetfulness 



Pericles 



resistless, like a Sioux, till at last he breaks loose 
from the restraint of earth and goes up in a chariot 
of fire, leaving in the heart of Israel an expectation 
of his return that endured and grew stronger for 
nine hundred years. 

The supreme idea that runs resistless throughout 
all ages and gives the final settlement to all dis- 
cussions is that spirit of obedience to duty that 
hears the Divine Voice as the last authority, that 
spirit which reckons not on self, but on the ever- 
lasting right. It matters not whether it is found in 
the oracles of God or in the kingly souls he has 
commissioned for deeds of heroism. Self -forge t- 
fulness is the original, divinely invented weapon 
that never recoils and never misses the mark. 
Pericles, with his big head, walking about Athens, 
pausing now and then to lean his head up against 
a post to rest his neck, gains his power not solely 
nor chiefly by brains, but by that supreme self- 
control and self-sacrifice. One day, presiding as 
judge, he endured the abuse of an enemy who 
persisted and followed him to his home in the 
suburbs of Athens, abusing him as he went. He 
never made reply, but called a servant to light him 
home, saying, "It is not right that a citizen of 
Athens should be exposed journeying in the 
darkness." 

Come with me and I will show you one of my 
old and particular friends, Oliver Cromwell, Eng- 



GREAT DEEDS OF GREAT MEN 327 

land's greatest ruler. I like Oliver Cromwell. He 

had to wait for centuries for a resurrection and 

fair play. Carlyle exhumed him. When the first WhyCariyie 

volume of Carlyle's Life of Cromwell appeared, ^^ ^*^^„ 

he was walking along the Strand with a little short 

Englishman who said to him, **Mr. Carlyle, what 

made you write that Life of Cromwell ?" Carlyle 

stopped and looking down at him said, "Man, I 

will tell you why I wrote that Life of Cromwell. 

When I was a bairn by my mither's knee I heard 

the old lady say that he was a gude man because 

he read his Bible and prayed, but when I got out 

into this English world I found everybody abusing 

him and calling him a liar and a thief and a 

regicide, and nurses scaring their children at night 

by telling them if they did not be quiet Cromwell 

would get them, and I wondered which was right. 

And so when I went to digging to find out, he was 

buried under fifteen feet of mud and royal muck, 

and I dug and I dug and I dug, and I found that 

the old woman, my mither, was right and that they 

are a pack of liars. That is why I wrote the Life 

of Cromwell." 

It is in the House of Commons. It is my Lord Cromwell 
General. I put Cromwell in the category with 
Elijah because I find nowhere, in European or 
Asiatic history, another man, as Carlyle puts it, 
"practicing this mean world's affairs with a heart 
more filled by the idea of the Highest." He 



328 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

is stout, broad, heavy-framed, enduring, plainly 
dressed. His hat had no band. His sword stuck 
close to his side. His countenance seemed swollen 
and reddish and wrinkled and scarred and jagged. 
His voice was sharp and untunable. His eloquence 
was full of fervor, his language solid, his sentences 
bungling and disconnected, his matter appropriate 
to the subject, and he was very much hearkened 
unto. On the last day of the usurping, the Rump 
Parliament, Cromwell came into the House, walked 
up the aisle, and sat down by the woolsack. Soon 
he beckoned Harrison to come sit by him. He 
held his head in his hands and swayed back and 
to, and was heard to say, "O, Lord, why hast thou 
put the doing of this upon me ? It must be done, 
it must be done!" They were debating the extend- 
ing of their time, already beyond the constitutional 
limit. The Speaker, Lord Lenthall, was about to 
put the motion, when Cromwell rose up, took off 
his bandless hat, and spoke for a good while 
commending Parliament, then he told them of the 
injustice and delays of justice and self-interest. 
Sir Peter Wentworth rose to order and said, 
"Strange language this, from a trusted servant, 
too! And one — " "Come, come!" exclaimed my 
Lord General, "we have had enough of this, I 
will put an end to your prating." Stepping forth 
onto the floor of the House, clapping on his hat, 
stamping the floor with his feet, he cries out, 



GREAT DEEDS OF GREAT MEN 329 

"Heavens! It is not fit that you should sit here 
any longer. You have sat too long for any good 
you have done to England. You shall now give 
place to better men." Turning to Harrison, he 
says, "Bring them in." In come twenty grim 
musketeers, with bullets in their guns, veteran men, 
men of war; their faces are like lions and their 
feet swift as the roe, and they form around him 
as they did at Dunbar. "You call yourselves a 
Parliament!" he exclaims in great heat. "You are 
no Parliament. I say you are no Parliament!" 
His eye flashing on poor Chaloms, he says, "Some 
of you are drunkards!" Looking sharply at Harry 
Martin and Sir Peter Wentworth, who had called 
order, he said sharply, "Some of you are living in 
open contempt of God's commandments, following 
your own greedy appetites and the devil's com- 
mandments; corrupt, unjust persons!" Here he 
glared on Whitlocke, one of the Commissioners of 
the Great Seal. Pointing sharply in their faces as 
they fled by him, he cried, "Thou art a thief!" 
"Thou art an adulterer!" "Thou art an hireling, 
paid for thy speeches!" "How can you be a 
Parliament for God's people ? Depart, I say, and 
let us have done with you. In the name of God, 
go!" And Parliament went. Drawing his sword, 
he put the point of it under the sacred mace and 
gave it a pitch from the sacred woolsack, saying, 
"Away with this bauble!" Lenthall refused to 



330 PATRIOTIC ORATIONS 

come down, when Cromwell glaring on him said 
to Harrison, "Fetch him down! Lend him a 
hand!" He came down and vanished. They all 
vanished. The Rump Parliament was no more. 
Walking out, he said to Sir Harry Vane, *T have 
sought the Lord night and day that he would 
rather slay me than put me upon the doing of this 
work. It is you that have forced me to this. O, 
Sir Harry Vane, Sir Harry Vane, thou with thy 
subtle casuistries and abstruse hairsplittings, thou 
art other than a good one, I think. The Lord 
deliver me from thee. Sir Harry Vane!" He 
locked the door, put the key in his pocket, and 
standing on the steps of Parliament said, *T do 
not hear a dog bark anywhere in London." 

Thus he gathered up the moral sense and 
enthusiasm of the nation and gave to England 
for the ten years of his dictatorship more strength 
and prosperity than she had ever experienced under 
her greatest monarchs. He conquered a King, 
subjugated an aristocracy, ended a religious war, 
crushed the levelers, repressed Parliament, insured 
liberty of conscience, disciplined the army, formed 
the navy, triumphed by sea over Holland, Spain, 
and the Genoese, conquered Jamaica, secured the 
New World, seized Dunkirk, counterbalanced 
France, coerced the government of Louis XIV 
into alliance, annexed Ireland and Scotland, making 
them integral parts of Great Britain, and added to 



GREAT DEEDS OF GREAT MEN 331 

the list of England's rulers its most distinguished 
name — God's prophet — Oliver Cromwell. 

Let me show you one more of God's prophets. Lincoln 
Yonder he comes, six feet and four inches high; 
walking in the Sangamon Bottoms, walking up into 
Springfield, walking up into Chicago, walking into 
Philadelphia, walking into Washington, walking 
into the White House. He came to the govern- 
ment by a minority vote. He put his hand upon 
Wall Street and steadied its faith. He stamped 
on the earth and two millions of armed men 
sprang up for his defense. He spoke to the sea 
and the greatest navy the world had ever seen 
crowned every wave. He breathed into the air and 
money and munitions rained upon the people. A 
philanthropist, he gave liberty to one race and 
freedom to another. A moralist, he stooped from 
the summit of human power to the foot of the 
Cross and became a Christian, "with malice to- 
ward none, with charity for all" — God's prophet — 
Abraham Lincoln. 



i' 



